


Beyond the Pale

by Lore55



Category: One Piece
Genre: All will be explained, Bisexual Female Character, Dimension Travel, F/F, F/M, Falling In Love, Fights, More tags as I go, Multiple Pairings, Mystery Character(s), New World (One Piece), One Piece Spoilers, Slow Build, Superpowers, Urban Fantasy, multiple OCs - Freeform, world building
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 07:25:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 26,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17039363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lore55/pseuds/Lore55
Summary: When the car went careening off the bridge it did more than send the sisters into the river. It sent them into an ocean a whole world away, and the adventure of a lifetime. Now, armed with future knowledge and a few new friends, they set out on a quest to reunite their family, and maybe take down a few dragons along the way.





	1. Crashing into Piracy

**Author's Note:**

> I've never put this many OCs in one story. Send help. The chapters get longer as I go along. Please be kind <3

Teddy didn't intend on launching herself off of a bridge going sixty miles an hour. And yet, she had. Life was funny that way.

Teddy didn't intend on waking up in a hospital room with tubes sticking out of her arms and headache pounding a beat that made her want to drive it into a wall. And yet, she had. Life was funny that way.

Life was even funnier when a man in a hat she could have sworn she owned came walking in and picked up a clip board. Teddy stared at him, squinting at the shirt, and his hands. He looked back at her, caught her staring, and scratched something down.

"Are those real?" she asked, eyeing his knuckles.

Blandly, he said, "Why would they be fake?"

Her next question was if she was being punked, but he kept talking before she could get to it.

"What's your name, Miss?"

"Teddy Devereux."

"Birthday?"

"June 6th, I'm 22." It went on like that. Her height, her weight, her godawful strawberry allergy, her appendix and tonsils being gone, and all the bones that she had previously broken. And that gave him room for pause.

"How did you get a compression fracture in five vertebrae?" which was a fair question. The ER doctor hadn't seen it in anyone under the age of ninety before she had limped in at three in the morning.

"I got shit faced and walked off a roof," she moved an arm to show him the rough scars above her wrist. "I've also gotten into a fist fight with a crocodile."

"Sounds like a blast. And how do you feel now?"

"Everything hurts but in that way that you know it hurts but drugs make it not real. What am I on?" she asked, trying to turn her her head to see. She found three different IV bags. Two were clear, one of them was filled with blood.

"Mostly blood loss," he set the chart down and came over to shine a light in her eyes. Teddy cringed but didn't fight it. This guy was definitely a doctor. There was no reason for him to be dressed up like he was. And if she had driven off of a bridge, then she had to be in a hospital. Unless that was also a part of the prank. But no one who know about her love of one piece would go to such great lengths to prank her.

So, what, was she in the world? Was she hallucinating? Maybe it was a coma, or a fever dream. Maybe she had finally lost her mind.

Whatever the reason was, she was too tired to really care. Whatever energy she had woken up with had been drained away by talking to her doctor. She was totally sure if he had left or if he was still in the room when her eyes shut. All she knew was that she needed to rest.

She fell asleep to the beating of her own heart.

* * *

Life wasn't funny for Peggy. Life was out to get Peggy. Peggy, who had never harmed a soul in her life, who had never said a mean word to a stranger, who had never cut into a line, who was absolutely lying to herself about all of these good qualities. Peggy who did not deserve to be laying in a canoe, with a tarp over her head while the sun tried to boil her alive.

She stared through the clear bottom of the boat. Down, down, down into the deep black water of what could only be the sea. With sky above, and sea below, and no land to be seen, Peggy was starting to panic.

She had no food, she had one gallon of water, and no oars. She was up a creek. In an ocean. She was going to die, and it was all because of Teddy. Who was probably already dead. Sunk to the bottom of an ocean that Peggy didn't remember driving anywhere near, still in the driver's seat.

Along with their other sisters.

Peggy swallowed thickly and pushed those thoughts away. Far away. This wasn't going to get her anywhere. She'd already spent the whole night drifting, her cuts stinging along her arms and face from the salt.

She lay her face down in the water, already soaked to the bone, and stared out over the waves. Through the clear canoe she could watch where the water stopped and the sea began.

She could watch it, and feel it, and soon she was ready to throw up. She would have, if she hadn't gone a day already without eating. Would she die this way, starving? Growing thin until her body ate itself and she wasted away. Or would she die of dehydration? Get dizzy and fall into a coma that she never woke up from?

Her stomach growled and churned. A whine came from her throat.

Peggy wanted her sisters. She wanted her cat, her sisters, her dad. She wanted her bed, solid land, and home.

What she got was the darkness of unconsciousness.

* * *

Will glared harshly at the spot on the dish that just would not leave. She was going to scrub it until it was total gone, or she would die trying. She had been given food and a roof and safety by these people and there was no way in hell she was going to be useless for them. Kind people deserved kindness in turn.

"That's a stain," Jordan told her, peering over her shoulder.

Will glowered. "Mother fricker." She finally set the dish aside and moved on to the next one. Jordan, who happened to be the owner of the bar, snickered at her expense before he moved on to shoo a cat out of the way. Will watched him go, her eyes caught by the posters on the wall. The wanted posters. She recognized everyone in them, and if she was where she thought she was, she was in trouble.

While she was washing dishes she let her mind wander, trying to figure out exaclty what she was going to do. Her sisters wouldn't wait around on an island. They wouldn't stay were they were and there was no way that any of them had died. Their dad had raised them to be stubborn and strong, and as much of a pacifist as Angie it would take more than a car crash and another dimension to keep her down.

So the real question was, how was she going to find them?

The first option she came up with was to become a pirate, make a name for herself and wait for her sisters to see her bounty and come find her.

There were a few problems with that. The biggest one being that pirates weren't stationary, especially the ones with a bounty on their head. There was also the fact that Will, a mule and a lone wolf together, would need to have a crew to be a proper pirate. So that option was pretty much out.

The other option was to wait and hope that they happened across her, but she hadn't the patience for that, and the chances that her sisters would just find the island were slim to none.

So she needed something else. But what? Where would her sisters go if they were in an anime world? Where would they venture?

She knew where Teddy would go. She would hunt down the Straw Hats and befriend Luffy. And Peggy would probably go along for the ride, if they were together. If they were separated… Peggy would probably try and find the red head. Shark? Shank? Something like that. Or Hawkeye. Who was not an archer in this universe.

Angie would go to the hottest place she could probably find, so good money was on Alabasta. Which the Straw Hats would eventually visit, if they hadn't already. That would bring Teddy, Angie, and possibly Peggy together. Kit would go- well, Kit was anyones guess.

So Alabasta.

Will had her goal. Now she had to raise funds to get there.

Which meant work. Will liked working, honest. But she was a massage therapist, not a bus boy. Girl. Woman. Starting her own practice would take too long, and as nice as Jordan was he didn't pay in money so much as in accommodations. Will wasn't the only one sleeping on the attic floor above the bar. There were at least three other employees who had their own cots.

She could only assume that Jordan had a habit of collecting strays that washed up on the beach.

* * *

A stray cat on a pirate ship was nothing unexpected. Cats had been used for centuries to counter mice and rats.

A stray girl on a pirate ship was a little more conspicuous.

It wasn't really that much of a surprise, all things considered, that there were so many of the men on deck staring at her. That didn't mean she didn't feel awkward, shivering violently inside of a blanket someone had been kind enough to loan her. Or maybe a was a part of the big top, considering that these pirates were dressed more like circus performers.

Someone much taller than she (which wasn't saying much) came stomping over. And by someone, she meant a clown. With blue hair. And a red nose. Oh, and a pirate hat. That too.

She stared up at him, utterly miserable. She felt like a drowned cat herself, and wondered where Wafer had gone. The furball was a better swimmer than she was.

"Who's this?" he demanded, pointing a gloved finger in her face. "And why is he on my ship?"

One of the boys that had pulled her aboard, who couldn't have been much older than she, straightened up.

"Captain! The sea spit her out into one of the row boats."

"The sea spit her out?!"

She didn't like how he was shouting. He was dressed up like a clown and she was weird one? For being thrown violently out of a vortex of water? That couldn't have been that weird for a pirate who sailed around under the big top. Right?

"Uh. Yeah," the boy nodded. Slowly.

"Then throw her back in," he demanded. Angie stiffened up. No, no, no. She hated the water. She had had enough of it. And with no land in sight she had only one thing to do.

She latched onto the captain's arm.

"Please," her voice was rough from sea water. "I'd like to join your crew."

There was a beat of silence before the clown started laughing at her. He didn't shake her off or throw her over the railing, which was a pleasant surprise. But being laughed at still stung a little. Weren't clowns supposed to be the ones who were laughed at?

"You? Why would I let you join my amazing crew? Do you really think you're strong enough to join the Buggy Pirates?" he demanded, leaning right in towards her face. He was way too close. And the name of the crew had to be wrong. Or some weird coincidence.

She nodded.

"I would like to trav-" she cleared her throat to prevent coughing and tried again, "I would join your crew, the strongest in the world, and help you accumulate treasure."

If it wasn't a coincidence, that should work. If it was, it might still work.

Sure enough, the captain straightened up and she let go of his arm when he brought it to his chin, clearly mulling over her words.

"Well, I guess we do need a new chore boy," he finally said, looking down at her. "What's your name, boy?"

"Angie. And, I'm a girl," she added.

"What?!" he shouted in her face again. "How are you a girl?!"

Angie barely blinked at him. "Because I am," she said simply. Her short hair plastered to her skull must have made it hard to tell. "So, a chore girl. May I dry off before I begin?"

"Ha! Work starts right now!" she was afraid he was going to say that, "And I have a list I've been meaning to give out to someone. Now I have the perfect person!"

Angie hid a sneeze in the red and white stripes of the blanket, or whatever it was. God she hated being cold. Where was a space heater when she needed one?

More importantly, where were her sisters?


	2. Recovery Period

Teddy didn't particularly care for blood transfusions. She was a universal receiver, so there was no risk of someone giving her the wrong markers, seeing as it was impossible. But, none the less, they made her feel sluggish and tired as her body tried to adjust, and she always, always ended up running a fever.

It was that that her doctor, doctor Law, was checking for when he took the thermometer from her mouth. She couldn't cross her legs without cutting off the circulation yet, so she was resorted to sitting like a weird L.

"You're hot," he reported, and started messing with IV bags.

Teddy fluttered her lashes at him. "Why doctor, is that how you talk to all of your patients?"

He rolled his eyes at her antics. She had been up to it from day one, for lack of anything else to do. Flirting rediculously and badly just to see what would happen. The fact that this guy hadn't broken character yet was impressive. Teddy would have called him on this, but she was having too much fun with it. Pretending to be in a submarine with Trafalger Law was entertaining, and if her sisters were in bad shape Dad would have already torn the illusion apart and come to yell at her.

A coma wouldn't keep her dad from getting her to wake up, so it had to be a prank.

That didn't stop the niggling feeling in the back of her head that she should have been visited by now, that the air didn't feel quite right, but she dismissed that as the sterile room she was kept in.

"Don't you think it's a little counter-intuitive for a doctor to have that tattoo?" she asked, nodding to his hand. Law looked down at his knuckles before he lifted a smile that showed a few too many teeth towards her.

"Maybe a pirate doctor needs them," he put forth, and Teddy snickered a little.

"A pirate doctor? Does that make you the Surgeon of Death?" she teased.

"As a matter of fact, it does," he said it with such casual confidence that for a moment Teddy almost believed him. It would be nice to believe that this was real. That she was about to go on an adventure of a lifetime, away from the monotony of her everyday life.

"Oh really," Teddy crossed her arms and eyed him. "You don't look that scary to me," she challenged.

"Then I should probably check your eyes next," he retorted smoothly. His hand touched her shoulder. "Lay back down."

"I'm tired of sleep," Teddy complained, but still laid back. Blood loss was serious, and if he was to be believed almost everyone on the boat had given at least a little to keep her alive. "When can I get up?"

Law pondered this for a moment before he said, "Tomorrow we'll try standing. _Maybe_ walking."

Teddy made a face. "If I go too long won't my muscles start to apostrophe?"

"Atrophy," he corrected. "And that won't start for another week."

"Even for a serious athlete such as myself?" she feigned concern, and pouted when he just gave her a flat look.

"Serious athlete?" he repeated.

"Ouch! I'll have you know I am an excellent gymnast. I can do three somersaults in a row, and I've never broken my neck trying to front flip!"

"Have you ever actually landed the front flip?"

Teddy laughed awkwardly. "Not the point, dude." She could. With some help, and a bit of magic. Kit, on the other hand, could go free running up the side of a building if she really wanted to. Teddy wondered where the eldest sister had run off to anyhow.

"I'll be back later," he said, shaking his head at her antics and going for the door. Teddy opened her mouth to say something before she stopped herself. Something told her she didn't want to ask the question that had lodged itself behind her teeth.

So she closed her mouth, and stared at the door as it closed.

The silence was deafening.

For someone who grew up in a house with five girls and dad who didn't understand what the words 'inside voice' meant, any measure of quiet was too much. Any time spent without someone shouting or singing or making a terrible joke was a sign of something going terribly wrong.

And in this case, she didn't want to be left alone to her own thoughts.

To the doubts that this was a coma. To the doubts that this was a prank. To the absence of her sisters, to the lack of a shouting father. To the blood pumping through her ear, blood that did not belong to her and itched under her skin.

She looked, unseeing, at a jar of cotton swabs, and thought of the lighthouse that lead the way home.

"Peggy…"

* * *

Peggy had taken to counting clouds in between her long naps and her poor attempts to fish. She'd managed to catch two skinny fish and a bird. All of which she had eaten raw, and wanted to puke as soon as it was in her stomach. Teddy may not have minded blood, but Peggy hated the taste.

Beggars, however, could not be choosers, and so she ate what she could catch, and made lures out of bones and her favorite shiny hair clip, and thin strings she tore off of the tarp made up her line. There were deep cuts in her fingers on top of everything else from her frantic attempts to reel in the fish. She had been sliced almost down to bone by now.

"Pain results in tolerance, tolerance breeds strength," she murmured. She spoke sometimes. To keep the quiet at bay.

"Pain results in tolerance, tolerance breeds strength," she said again. A spot appeared in the distance. She stiffened and sat up, the tarp rolling off of her to crinkle on the canoe floor. The spot crew bigger. There was a white square on top. A ship? An island?

"Hey!" she shouted. Coughed. And screamed again, "HEY! OVER HERE!" she waved her arms frantically, trying to get attention, trying to get help. Help. This was it! This was her salvation!

"HEY!" she screamed as long and as loud as she could, but it was cut off. The little white dot, which had been growing closer, abruptly turning into a massive inferno. The sight reached her before the sound of the explosion. A shock wave pushed her back, hard, and she toppled into the sea.

Peggy lashed out with her limbs, struggling to push herself to the surface, but she was sinking. Down, down, into the water. Sucked into the ocean. She wasn't strong enough to fight the water. She wasn't strong enough to get back to her boat.

She was going to die. Like her sisters.

Like her sisters. Her sisters, who had already gone ahead. Would they be waiting for her? What would they say if she joined them because she let water beat her?

" _Peggy..."_

She stiffened, which only sunk her faster, when Teddy's voice whispered in her ear. What the hell was she doing? If she died like this, then what would happen to Dad? Who would go home to him, at the end of the day?

If she died like this, who would be left to remember her sisters the way she did?

Peggy kicked hard, tore at the water and wished for all the world that she was Angie, who hated water but would never drown in it. She wished that she was Will, strong and stubborn and aptly named. She wished she was Kit, who would fight the ocean currents with her fists until they had lost and never wonder if she would lose.

But she was none of them. She was Peggy, whose bones were thickest and who was alone at sea. And she was Peggy, who would not die like this.

She broke the surface and gasped for breath, coughing out sea water. She looked around, praying she hadn't gotten too far from her canoe. And sure enough, there it was.

She managed to dog paddle over to it and haul herself in, panting harshly. She had been so close. So close to rescue, so close to death. And now she was right back where she started.

Only not so, for now she was Peggy, and Peggy was not going to die alone in the ocean.

She took a swig of her dwindling water and started paddling her canoe towards the explosion sight. She didn't know what had happened, to that ship, and frankly she didn't want to be around to find out.

But she was almost out of water, and with her fishing skills as awful as they were, she couldn't exactly rely on that to save her. Which meant she was going to have to scavenge. Her stomach turned just thinking about it, but she quelled it. If she threw up now, she was going to scream.

It took hours of paddling, using up energy she really didn't have to spare. As she neared the smoking remains of the ship the smell of burnt flesh invaded her senses. She pulled the salt caked bandana off of her head and wrapped it around her mouth, hoping to filter some of the ash that was floating around.

She very studiously ignored the bodies floating around her, focusing on other things. Things she could use. She hadn't reached the point of desperation where charred humans were appetizing, and if she could find some food or something then maybe she wouldn't.

Food, or better yet water.

Almost as good, she spotted a paddle and dragged it to her. With more mobility she could push wreckage around and go faster.

She turned her canoe around a large piece of floating ship with a leg poking out of the boards and smiled. There was food floating around, most of it unrecognizable, but she knew apples when she saw them, and started bobbing for those. And a watermelon!

Not much would fit in a canoe, but she was going to take all that she could before she got the hell out of dodge. Fruits, a barrel of all things filled with nothing but carrots, and cans. Most of them were sitting on something else, or caught tangled in the wreckage instead of sinking. She swallowed her stomach and wrestled a knife off of a man who stared at her with blank eyes.

And that was all fantastic.

But the best things she found, was water. There was wine too, but she knew from years of being Teddy's designated driver that alcohol would only dehydrate her faster. So she forwent that, and hauled as much as she could, until the canoe was barely floating.

Even then she managed to find life vests that she struggled to secure onto it, to help lift it and keep it afloat. It wasn't like the bodies in the water were going to need them.

There was more to be salvaged, but she hadn't the space.

Or, maybe she did. A little ways away was a dinghy, that didn't look like it was going to be sinking anytime soon.

Slowly, she started to smile. Peggy paddled over to the dinghy, intent on tying it to the canoe and using it for extra storage. Her intentions were shot down when she peered in and got a gun barrel pointing at her face.

A boy, who couldn't have been older than she was, held a flintlock pistol at her head, his hand shaking. One eye was closed with blood that dripped down from his forehead, and clothes and hair were all singed. She could see burns lining his arms. When he spoke, his voice was thick.

"Don't move. Or you're dead."

This was just her luck.

* * *

Will wasn't patient enough for this shit.

"Ma'am, the conversion rate and the islands inflation means that-"

"I bought this for 300 Beri, that's what I want for it!" she snapped, flipping her hair. Will's mouth twitched and she folded her hands behind her before she smacked the lady. You couldn't buy something on one island and expect it be worth the same amount, used, on another island. Even if it was a chain store.

And who even heard of chainstore in One Piece? She certainly hadn't. Why couldn't she get away from retail? Bad enough she had had to use it to pay for college, now she was missing a degree and was right back where she started. This wasn't fair.

"Here it's only worth 200," she tried to explain, for the umpteenth time, before Jordan, who apparently owned half the god forsaken town and was a goddamned teleporter, appeared at her side.

"Is there a problem, miss?" he asked politely, shooing Will away.

She couldn't get away fast enough. She had managed to get another job on top of the one that Jordan provided her at the bar, and was scraping by, digging up enough money to book passage on a ship that would take her to Alabasta Kingdom.

It was slow going.

At the rate she had now, it was going to take a year for her to reach her goal. Far too long. She needed to get there as soon as possible, and a year was out of the question.

She was already working as much as she could, so unless she managed to get a raise or win the lottery she was royally screwed. What else could she do?

Bounty hunting was an option, but there was always the tiny little fact that Will sucked at fighting. Now, she could get down and dirty, and she wasn't afraid to take a few hits with her sisters. In fact they had something of a bad reputation in town for starting fights. But, she was not the best at subduing, and she certainly had no intention of killing. Perhaps she could just let them swing at her until they tired themselves out?

She grabbed a crate of oranges and hefted it up, balancing it on her hip when she took it out to the front of the grocery store to start refilling all of the holes. It was mind numbing work, and the sun was hot, but it was what it was. And what it was was going to drive her absolutely insane.

A commotion sounded from the bar and she glanced over, grimaced at the sight of Jeremy and his gang of local thugs stumbling out at three in the afternoon, and swiftly made her way inside. She hadn't the patients for perverts. And she wasn't allowed to stuff an orange down his throat.

Where was Kit when she needed her?

* * *

"Hey! Why didn't you fold my shirts the way Richie does?" Captain Buggy shook his shirt, now all balled up, in her direction. Angie merely shrugged.

"T'was faster. 'N less wrinkles," she explained. She'd spent most of her adult life working retail, she knew how to fold a flipping shirt so it still looked good when it was taken off of the shelf. And if her new captain really hated it, he would have to deal with it.

"Fold it the other way! I want all of them switched around!" he demanded, dumping the whole drawer out.

Angie frowned ever so slightly and went about picking up and sorting the shirts. All of her hard work, ruined. She was starting to dislike this big nosed pirate. He was childish and annoying and didn't specify until after things had already been done. And he had the strangest habit of detaching his own body parts.

But, what did one expect in the world of One Piece? For things to be easy? Hardly. As soon as she had accepted where she was Angie knew that she was going to be struggling for a long time. She was going to be wet and cold, in the middle of the ocean, until she could make her way somewhere warmer. Maybe somewhere tropical, or better yet, a desert. Yes, that sounded lovely. As far from the sea and its cold pull as she could get.

With Buggy storming off Angie got back to work, refolding all of his shirts. The bright patterns glared into her blue eyes until she felt dizzy with it. The sea pitched and rolled beneath the ship, trying to claw its way inside to devour her.

Swallowing back her fear, she started over, trying to remember how Richie folded things


	3. Lost Girls

* * *

When Teddy first stood up, she felt the blood drop straight down, and she went with it.

The second time she had a vice grip on the doctor's arm, using him as a sort of crutch to keep herself from smashing headfirst into the floor. His other hand was on her other elbow, using it to keep her steady. Her legs tried to buckle again, but she willed them stay steady, knees bent. She almost threw up from all the new blood swishing around her body, but swallowed back the urge.

"Okay," she said slowly, loosening her hold on his arm before she bruised him. From the grimace on his face, it was probably too late.

"How do you feel?" he asked. She considered this, tilting her head one way, then another. She stretched one arm out, wiggling her fingers, then tried standing on one leg.

"It still hurts. But pain results in tolerance, and tolerance breeds strength," she made a fists, felt the blood flow change, and let it go. This was okay. She could work with this.

"Who told you that?" he asked, letting her go at last. Teddy took a couple of steps, wearily. They were moving under her feet. Was this really a ship?

"My mother. It was something she told me and my sister whenever we got hurt." Teddy could remember all too well the first time she had sliced her hand open on a kitchen knife. She had screamed and cried while the blood fell through her fingers, until her mother had taken her hand and told her those words. Pain was the path to strength, and through pain did they get stronger.

Law just made a sound to show he was listening, which was good because if he didn't Teddy would have started rambling.

"Can I go for a walk now?" she asked, looking at him pleadingly.

Law frowned at her before he shrugged. "Just don't get in the way. And don't get lost."

"You aren't coming with me?" Teddy was pretty surprised. She hadn't seen anyone other than Law since waking up.

"I do have other things to do you know," he said dryly. Teddy bit back an inappropriate comment and just smiled at him before she went for a door.

"I'll see you later doctor!" she called over her shoulder before she stepped out into the hallway. She pretty much stopped dead. This was absolutely not a hospital. There was no white tile that would glare into her eyes, no nurses rushing too and froe, no doctors walking around. She had been in enough hospitals to know one and this place didn't even smell like one. It smelled like sea water and fuel.

More than that, she could see pipes and tubes, metal panels and latches. It wasn't quite cramped, but she was thankful she had never gotten Kit's claustrophobia. Teddy walked, forwards, her eyes as wide as her mouth. She had never seen anything like this in person before. It looked like-

It looked like the inside of a submarine.

This was going pretty far for a prank. The niggling in the back of her head came back.

Teddy ignored it and started exploring. She took a left, then a right, then got totally lost. But, she did end up in a room where the wall was lined with dining booths and a coffee machine was bolted into the wall.

There happened to be other people there too. Two boys her age. And a guy in a bear costume. One of the boys was in a penguin hat, and the other was a redhead in a plain black hat. Penguin and Shachi, she assumed they were supposed to be. And they were looking at her, along with the bear, whose head had turned. That was weird. Costumes didn't normally rotate, as far as she knew.

"Hey!" the redhead jumped out of the booth and moved towards her. "You're the one the Captain has had locked up all week!"

She smiled at him and offered her hand. "I'm Teddy. Hi."

"Shachi! This is Penguin," he jerked his thumb to the friend who had followed at his elbow, "And Bepo," to the bear that walked over a little slower. He had an expression on his face. That was weird.

She looked up at him, and he looked so alive. So real. She reached out without thinking and burried her fingers in his fur. She felt the startled squeak he made through his skin. Skin that was hot. Skin that was warm with blood inside of it.

"Oh," she said, slowly, "A bear."

"Um. Hi?" Bepo was looking down at her with wide eyes. Wide, real eyes. Real eyes. It was real. All of it. That meant that she really had been treated by the mother _fucking_ surgeon of death, Trafalger D. Water Law.

"Hey," she smiled up at him, her mouth moving faster than her mind. "We can be Teddy and the Bear."

She was oblivious to the startled stare of Bepo and the peeling laughter of Penguin and Shachi. Her blood was pounding in her ears. She smiled at them placidly. She really was in One Piece. Which left a lot of question. How did she get here? Why had Law helped someone he had never met before? Why hadn't her father come to retrieve them? And, most importantly,

Where the hell were her sisters?

* * *

Peggy stared back at the boy in the other boat, which was now tied to her own, eying him wearily. He glared back viciously, like a cornered animal. She felt only so much pity for him. His pistol had sunk down into the ocean, along with the knife he'd had in his boot and the hollowed ring on his finger. Now he sat behind her, gripping one messily bandaged arm, surrounded by her plunder.

With only the one oar they couldn't get far. Not to mention neither of them had a compass that worked, which meant the only navigating could be done at night, morning, or evening. Since she couldn't read stars Peggy had elected for a continuous westward course. When her new 'companion' had asked why she had asked if he had a better direction.

When he pouted sullenly she took that to mean that west it was, so off they sailed. Drifted. Paddled sometimes. She still kept up her fishing, even if she did have more food now she was going to have to share it.

She should have gotten the alcohol, she realized belatedly, to tend to her now probably-infected arms. And now his.

She looked away from him, glancing towards the knife at her side, before she looked to the sea. They were going to have to figure something out. This aimless drifting was not going to get them anywhere. And she didn't think she wanted to go screaming for help again any time soon.

"Hey." it was first time he'd spoken since she had set their course. "Hey!"

"You don't have to yell," she snapped, glowering at him. "Just say whatever you're saying."

"Tch. Fine. How'd you know I wasn't going to shoot you?" he demanded, leaning forwards enough that the dinghy wobbled.

Peggy stared at him. "I didn't."

"You- what? I had a gun pointed at your head! I could have killed you!"

"No you couldn't have," she looked at him like he was crazy. "We're in the ocean. You were soaking wet where you weren't burnt, and that was a flintlock pistol. Black powder only ignites when dry."

He faltered.

"Oh."

Peggy wanted to scream. How was this the person she was stuck in the middle of the ocean with?

Sullenly, she pulled the tarp further over her head and tugged at one of the fishing lines. She wanted to eat. If she could get a fish they would have protein. A bird would be better, more meat on it. And more blood. Peggy gagged at the thought.

"Hey," he said again, and this time she just glanced at him. "What's your name?"

The girl twitched her fingers, trying to lure something.

"Margarita. My friends call me Peggy,"

"Alright, Peggy, what are we going to do?" He made a face at her.

She barely glanced at him.

"Well, you're going to call me Margarita, and I'm going to find us land."

* * *

The waves beat against the ship, pounding the hull until it creaked and groaned, shuddering under the power of the ocean.

Angie shivered and clung to the wall. Everyone else was on deck but she coudln't go up there, into the dark, where the water would do its best to claw her down into its depth and take her into oblivion.

Its call was not a siren, it was not appealing. It was terrifying.

The ship pitched and she was thrown against the floor, where her head smacked it hard. A horrible sound reached her ears and she looked up just in time to see the wood splinter in front of her eyes.

She tried to run, tried to launch herself away but the water exploded towards her.

Angie screamed and threw her hands in front of her.

" _No_!" she shrieked. Her hands weren't drenched.

She cracked her eyes opened and looked sideways at it, fearing what she might see.

The wall of water was stopped a foot away from her finger tips. It pushed, swaying towards her but she shoved it backwards, breathing hard. It sunk out of the ship like a scolded puppy, pulling back into the rest of it.

"What the hell?"

She looked to the side, not daring lower her hands, to find the captain of the ship standing there, staring at her with eyes as big as his nose.

What the hell indeed.


	4. Crew-sing the Sea

* * *

Will sighed softly. This was getting to be stupid. She had no idea where the Straw Hat pirates were, and no idea how to find them. At this point she was seriously considering becoming a bounty hunter. It paid more than her job at the grocery store and the inn combined. If she didn't get killed by pirates along the way.

"Thinking about your sisters?" Jordan guess from where he stood behind the counter, wiping down glasses. It was one of her few days off and she had been taking advantage of her employee discount to drink as much juice as she could.

"Thinking about how to get to them," she corrected lightly.

"Any ideas?"Jordan refilled her glass for her, with more orange juice.

"Become a pirate? Join the marines? I know two out of four will be in the Grand Line at some point. In Alabasta. I need to get there before they do, or I'll be hunting for them all over the place. And I don't-"

"Have the patience for that," Jordan finished. He leaned across the counter towards her. "You don't have the patience for a lot of things, do you?"

"I have the patience to work for you," she retorted.

Jordan looked over her shoulder before he looked back at her. His expression changed. From light and kind and friendly to something more serious. Will was reminded of her father for a split second.

"Yeah, you do. And I'm getting tired of you taking up so much room in my house. So I got you a present."

"A… present," she repeated. He pulled something out of his pocket and pushed it across the wood towards her. She picked it up, an envelope, and gave him a funny look. He also pulled the thin dagger from his belt. It reminded her of the parrying dagger her fencing teacher had made her learn to use. The sheath was a plain red leather.

"Wait until youre alone," Jordan instructed. "And start packing."

Will looked between the two gifts and her boss, landlord and friend. She smiled a little.

"Thank you. But why are you doing… whatever this is?"

"I told you. I'm tired of you taking up space," he winked at her and straightened up when someone walked into the restaurant. She smiled at him and stood up, tucking the envelope inside of her shirt, under her bra, and clicking the knife only her belt. Her jeans were getting worn through by now.

She jogged up the stairs, to the room she shared with the others, and ducked into the bathroom where she could lock the door. Only then did she pull the letter out and flip the knife from its sheath.

She paused.

One side had something that looks like teeth. Not human teeth, but evenly spaced gaps set into the metal. Each deep divot, the shape of a U, had slightly curved pointed on the tip of each raised… thing. She didn't know what to call it. There was an engraving on the middle of the blade.

" 'Sword Breaker'," she murmured. What did that mean? The other side of the dagger was sharp enough to split hairs, and that part she used to slice open the letter.

Inside, she found money. A lot of money. And a letter, and a ticket.

She unfolded the letter and read it carefully.

_Will,_

_I know how much your family means to you. My family is all gone now. So, I wanted to help you get to yours, if I could. Show this 'ticket' to Captain Daavos, on the Marine ship Seaworthy. He'll give you a ride to the Grand Line. From there, you'll have to find your own way to Alabasta Kingdom. He expects you to work for your food, but don't let him trick you into staying on forever. I paid your passage, you're just working to eat._

_The Grand Line is a dangerous place, so be careful. I hope this dagger will help you. You look like a girl who can fight, and if not, go seduce a man who can!_

Will snorted. Seduction was more Teddy's thing.

_I'll see you again someday, I'm sure, but for now this is farewell. The ship leaves at dawn tomorrow. You're' going to want to be on before dusk._

_Good Luck, Jordan_

Tomorrow?

Will felt a twitch develop above her eyebrow. She appreciated Jordan's help, but couldn't he have told her sooner?!

Will quickly tucked everything away, stuffing the letter back under her bra and returning Sword Breaker to its sheath before she rushed out into the room.

Talisa shoved into the bathroom and slammed the door.

Will got down on her knees and started grabbing everything she owned. She folded her clothes neatly, lay them on top of her sleeping bag, and moved on to her toiletries that went next to those, along with some granola, a couple of cans of fruit, and her cell phone. It was dead now, but she was sentimental. All of this she zipped up before rolling the bag tightly and shoving that into a black backpack.

Her money, what wasn't coin, she also stuffed into her bra. The coins went into her pocket. She missed credit cards.

With all her supplies packed she swung her backpack on and went down the stairs. She wanted to pick up a couple more things before she left. When she looked in, Jordan was busy behind the counter again. He glanced up and she caught his eye.

Will smiled and waved at him before she went for the door.

It was time to start her journey to Alabasta Kingdom.

* * *

Peggy was asleep under her tarp when the shout rang out. She sat up, looking around quickly. Another ship had appeared on the horizon.

Apprehension filled her stomach.

She gripped the pistol tight. It wasn't' loaded, but bluffing would get a person a long way, or so her father had always told her.

"Ah shit," the boy hissed. She looked over to see him shading his eyes, and shaking.

"What is it?" she was sure she didn't actually want the answer to her question.

"That's a pirate ship," he said quietly. "I can see the black sail. The Jolly Roger. Oh shit, we're screwed."

Peggy looked between him, their dwindling supplies, and the ship approaching. They only had about enough to last another day, maybe two, before they were out of food and water entirely.

Peggy checked the pistol again. There was still some powder left in it. If that ignited…

She lifted the gun up above her head, pointing it to the sky. She cocked back the hammer, and pulled the trigger.

The sound echoed around them and she lifted the tarp next, waving it above her head.

"What are you doing?!" the boy shouted at her.

"We've got three option. We die of dehydration. They kill us. Or they save us," she said flatly. "The only one of those that gives us a chance at living, involves us getting their attention. "

"But they're pirates!" he shouted.

"Yeah. And you tried to kill me not three weeks ago. So shut it, Tom."

"Who died and made you queen?" he demanded.

"I could say something really mean and hurtful to that, but I won't. Besides, I already got their attention. Look, they're coming this way," she pointed, and true to her word the ship was getting closer.

She squinted, trying to see what the sail looked like. A skull and crossbones. The skull was wearing a hat. She stared blankly.

"What, the actual fuck?" she mumbled. She knew that jolly roger. And… hands were coming at them. Quickly. Hands attached to arms they were stretching all the way from the ship.

Peggy reached up, and one of the hands grabbed hers. The other wrapped around Tom's arm.

Then, she was flying. And screaming. Screaming loudly. Tom was too.

She knocked hard into a body that stretched and bounced her out onto hard wood. She lay still for a long minute, staring up at the sky above her head. The clouds were pretty at least, wispy and reaching out over head.

A head poked into her line of sight. Then another, and another. Black hair, black eyes and a straw hat. Black hair, black eyes and a bizarre nose. Blond hair, black eyes, and weird eyebrows. Straw Hat Pirates.

"This is weird," she declared aloud. Weird. Not the weirdest thing that had happened in her life. She sat up slowly, and found a large hand between her shoulder blades, helping support her weakened muscles.

"Are you alright, lovely lady?" the blond asked. His other hand came to take her own. She could see her bones in the knuckles.

"I could use some water if you have any," she said.

"Of course! I'll get you some right away!" He ran off, disappearing from her sight. A girl with orange, not _red_ , hair took his place. Short red hair. So, pre timeskip One Piece. Pre timeskip One Piece.

Peggy was taking this whole thing better than she thought. Of course, dehydration may or may mess with a person's mental state. A lot. She wasn't totally sure. Teddy would probably know. She knew a lot about how much water was supposed to be in a person's body.

Peggy missed her sister desperately, but now that she knew where they were she was more sure than ever that, if no one else, Angie was alive. And probably deeply upset. The girl hated water. Will was probably somewhere trying to be responsible for them when they weren't around. Teddy was probably at a party. Or seducing Doflamingo if she wasn't here drinking with Zoro. And Kit had probably already committed homicide and made her own pirate crew.

Probably named after some fox pun.

"Hey there. Are you okay?" Nami asked, breaking her out of her rambling thoughts.

Peggy considered that.

"I'm pretty sure I lost forty pounds in the last month, and I would kill Tom for a milkshake."

"Fuck you, Margarita," Tom stuck his tongue out at her.

"Margarita, is that your name?" Nami asked.

"My given name. It's Margarita D- er, Deveroux Margarita. You can call me Peggy. That's Tom," she pointed. "He's the one I would I kill for a milkshake."

"Why would you shake milk?" the boy with the hat asked. Luffy. Luffy was talking to her. Peggy reached up and pinched his cheeks. And pulled.

They stretched out in her grasp easily, with barely any resistance at all. It showed his teeth in a funny looking smile and he tilted his head curiously, like a bird. A stretchy, stretchy bird. She let go and his face snapped back together.

"Cute," she declared. "You shake it to make it amazing. With ice cream and strawberries and stuff. Whipped cream goes on top and a cherry sits there too."

"That sounds so cool!" Luffy grinned at her massively and turned as Sanji approached with two cups of water.

"Sanji, Sanji! Hey, make us milkshakes!" he bounced around the chef, who very promptly kicked him away. Hard. Peggy had the very surreal thought that she was probably the weakest person on the ship.

"Not now!" he shouted at the rubber boy before he turned to Peggy and smiled down at her and crouched beside Nami. He pushed the cup to her lips. She tried to reach up to just take it from him but he gently pushed her hands down.

"Your beautiful fingers have been through enough damage, dear lady," he declared, and tipped the cup up. Peggy was careful only to sip. She was pretty sure if he drank like she wanted to she would throw everything up she had worked so hard to procure.

Tom was less smart. He gulped down as much as he could, and spewed it all over the deck.

Peggy turned away from the sight, making a face.

"Thank you," she told Sanji. "I thought we were going to die."

Sanji smiled at her kindly. "Always a pleasure to help such a beautiful lady."

Peggy felt her cheeks warm with whatever blood was in her body. She glanced downwards.

"Is um, is there anywhere I can clean up? I feel like Lot's wife," she admitted. She had tried to stay out of the sun, but there was only so much she could do. The sun had baked salt onto her until she looked like she was trying to be mummified, her clothes were hard and nearly unrecognizable and she couldn't imagine what her hair looked like. She hadn't even thought of combing it in a month. And now here she was, with water and food and fictional folks helping her.

"Who's Lot?" Luffy asked.

"He's a guy who ran from a meteorite. His wife turned into a pillar of salt. Then their city blew up," she paraphrased.

"Ooooh," he said, nodding sagely.

"Here," Nami took her by her elbow. "I'll show you where the shower is. Usopp will pump some water up for you."

"Yes," Usopp agreed. A second later his face fell. "Hey! Get it yourself!"

"It's not for myself, it's for her!" Nami barked. Peggy winced from the volume. She sounded like Kit.

Usopp grumbled but went over to a wall and opened it up into a closet with what what looked like a bike that he started to pedal. Peggy only got a brief look before she was pulled inside.

It was a weird layout. To get to the bathroom they had to climb down, into a storage room, and then through another door to get to it. Peggy could have cried, if she had the water for it.

"I never knew I could miss a bathroom so much," she mumbled, staring around at the tiles, the rub, the _toilet_. She loved toilets. She loved them so much, she never wanted to live without them again. Never ever ever.

Nami touched her shoulder.

"Just yell if you need anything. One of the boys might come in, but you can just hit them," she winked at her.

Peggy smiled at her. "Thank you. You're… really nice. A lot nicer than I thought, um, pirates would be."

"What, you think we're all tuff guys who like pushing little girls around?" Nami propped a hand on her hip. Peggy shook her head, snickering a little.

"I've never met real pirates before, sorry."

"It's alright. You're not the first person who's had that mistake. Why don't you take a bath? I'll bring you some of my clothes," her smiled sharpened ever so slightly. "You can pay us back later."

Peggy didn't even care about that right now.

"Thank you, so much," she said genuinely. Nami left her behind and the girl broke up the salt on her shirt, dragging it off along with everything else. Then, she sunk into the water, warm and steaming. She thought that after so many weeks at sea she would have been sick of water, but she was just glad to get all the salt off of her skin. She was absolutely caked in it.

Her eyes closed and she took a breath. Things were finally looking up.

* * *

"And you just follow the red?" Teddy prodded the log post curiously. Her jeans had been destroyed when she had crashed, which left her with the boiler suits and her T-shirt. She head flipped the top half of it down to use the sleeves as a belt, since she hated long sleeves with a passion. The bandages had finally come off of her arms, but she had loads of jagged scars now.

She felt baddass, sitting on the shoulder of a massive bear in a shirt that said 'eat the rich' with her arms all scarred up.

Bepo nodded. "And then we check it to our maps and to the islands we've already logged. We've got three eternal poses in case we want to go to those islands in particular."

"Don't sea people navigate with like, stars and shit?" She asked, laying her cheek on a furry head. After the initial surprise of her discover she had become obsessed with the bear. He was soft and warm and she liked sitting on his shoulder. It made her feel tall.

A girl riding a bear. Like she was going East.

"Normally, we do, but we can't here. The Grand Line is weird. The sea changes and the sun won't take you east or west, and the stars change overhead."

"Well shit. So the only way to get anywhere is with the Log Post," she had known it before, but it was always better to sure about getting home. She had about three different map apps on her phone. "What if it breaks?"

"Log Pose," he corrected.

"Log Pose," she repeated. "So the electromagnetic waves, do they have any relation to the polar caps? Or, how close are we to the equator? Is the Grand Line on the equator itself, or just close to it? What causes calm belts? How does the gravity of the satellites orbiting this planet affect the weather here? Does it interfere with the solar waves? Have you ever seen and Aurora Borealis?"

"Um. One question at a time, please," Bepo requested.

Teddy reigned in her curiosity. Now that she wasn't in the familiar setting of a hospital she had a million questions. She'd already been banned from the engine room for asking too many, which had lead her to the navigating bear. Mink. Whatever.

"I can't actually answer most of those questions, I'm sorry," Bepo's face fell and his head dropped, sending Teddy with it. Teddy patted his shoulder, now laying awkwardly curled part on his shoulder part on his head, curled over one leg with her arm pinned to her ribs.

It stretched her back painfully.

"It's all good, Bear," Teddy patted his head. "Ever seen the Aurora Borealis?"

"I don't know what that is…"

"Light in the sky. Pink and green and yellow," she waved her other arm in the air, gesturing towards the sky. Or the surface? She wasn't sure what to call up when they were underwater.

"Oh! We saw those once in the North Blue!"

"Mmm! Some people call them the norther lights," Teddy was delighted. They were here too! She would see them one day, in this world and her own.

She rolled abruptly, down Bepo's back until she was standing up. Her head had finally stopped spinning sometime last week.

"Thank you Bepo!" she sang, bouncing backwards.

"Where are you going now?" he asked. She had been making her rounds around the sub, bothering everyone she happened across with about two hundred questions. She was pretty sure that they all hated her.

"I dunno. Maybe I'll make Law show me how a heart works!"

* * *

Angie tugged at the neck kerchief tied around her throat. It was bright red, like a splash of blood against her skin. Ever since Buggy had seen her stop the water she had stopped being a cabin girl and started being… not that. A crew member of some sort. She didn't' have a circus theme like the rest of them, but that was fine. She didn't want to be around for too much longer.

The people here weren't that nice, not to her. It had changed a little, but she didn't forget how little anyone cared to help her when she was still doing nothing more than washing and picking up.

A cargo ship bounced in the distance. They were going to attack it, on the orders of their captain, and take everything on board.

Angie didn't like the idea, but she couldn't exactly tell them that.

She was on the bottom of the food chain and if they kicked her off the boat she would be in the middle of the ocean.

Angie shuddered at the thought. Whether or not she could bend the water to her will she still hated the ocean. Deeply.

Ha, water pun.

A smile twitched to life on her face.

Just in time for a cannon to fire and the fight to start.

Angie didn't really do anything. She mostly just watched the pirates descend onto the poor cargo ship and the people on it, who tried to fight back but were struck down. One managed to launch himself across the gap between the ships and land on their own. Targeting the little girl that had stayed behind.

Angie swallowed thickly and back away from the man. He was bouncing across the deck, his two legs apparently merged into one literal spring. Somehow it wasn't grotesque.

He moved towards her, brandishing a sword with the sharp tip pointed at her.

She took a deep breath and slashed her hand through the air in front of her. The sea lifted out of the water and smashed into the man. He was sent flying off of the boat and into the sea and that was that. Devil fruit users couldn't swim, after all, and there was no one who was willing or able to jump out after him.

Angie crept to the edge of the ship so she could look down into the darkened depths of the sea. A satisfaction that was not her own settled deep inside of her and the girl almost gagged. The feeling was cold, heavy and overwhelming.

The ocean wanted her to kill the thieves that stole it's power.

Angie wanted to go back to being in the woods in Iowa.


	5. Changing Tides

She was cold, and it had nothing to do with the fact that a _Polar Tang_ was at the bottom of the ocean.

Teddy ignored the unfortunately familiar feeling and the tightness in her stomach so she could lay down her cards and smile triumphantly. What had started at an innocent enough game of Eights had advanced to Poker, and too bad for the Heart Pirates, Teddy had spent most her high school career fucking around, literally and figuratively, and she was hard pressed to find someone who could match her at cards. She had a unfailingly chipper personality instead of a regular poker face, and the devil's own luck.

She had started with nothing in the pot save a scrap of paper labelled ' I O U', and now had a pile of cash and jewelry sitting in front of her.

Ikkaku, the only other girl on board and an absolute darling, was taking bets from the crowd that had assembled to watch Teddy, who was facing off against Penguin, Shachi, and Clione. The girl had a mind for business. Maybe they could team up to scam the boys out of more cash.

Teddy lay down a straight, jack high, and collected her winnings.

"You're certainly making something of yourself," Shachi teased.

Teddy stuck her tongue out at him. "And you're certainly bad at gambling. Wanna switch to something else? Blackjack? Gin Rummy?"

"You'd cheat at Blackjack!" Penguin accused.

Teddy smiled at him guilelessly. "How would I do that?" she asked, batting her lashes at him. Penguin flushed and looked away, grumbling.

"I'll be the house," Ikkaku volunteered. She, too, had accumulated a good sized pile of money in her lap.

"Nah, I think these boys have about had it," Teddy shook her head, deciding to be merciful. She could con them out of more money later on. Right then, she scooped her winnings, coins, jewelry, and dollar- er, beri bills, into a pillow case. She swung it onto her shoulder and stood up.

Ikkaku looked her over.

"You look like a real pirate in that," she told her.

Teddy startled, then laughed sheepishly.

"D'you think? I never thought I would end up on a pirate ship, honestly," she admitted, playing with the sleeve tied around her hips.

"I don't think I ever asked what you did before this," Ikkaku frowned. Teddy paused, realizing she had never told them much of anything other than that she and her sisters had crashed. They hadn't found Peggy, Will, Kit or Angie. Angie was no way going to die in a world of oceans, and Kit would physically fight the sea for her life, and all of theirs. Will would be fine too, she was reliable and strong. Peggy, she knew, was just fine.

Call it twins intuition.

If she was Will she would know exactly where she needed to go to find her sisters, she would be able to predict where each one was. If she was Kit she would already be halfway to getting to them. If she was Peggy she would be resourceful enough to do more than just hang out in a fucking sub.

"I was actually a wildlife photographer," Teddy told her. "I took pictures of plants and animals and sold them to magazines and newspapers and stuff," she gestured vaguely. "I'd show you my work, but I don't have my portfolio or my phone or anything."

"What's a phone?" Shachi asked, looking up at her.

"It's like a little box, about this big," she held her fingers up in a rectangle. "It holds pictures and stuff."

"Did you have two of them?" Penguin asked, which was a weird question if you asked Teddy.

"Um. No, but I had a solar charger that looked about the same. They're both lifeproof, supposedly."

"Did they look like these?" he pulled, from his pocket, her phone and her charger. Teddy snatched them out of his hands.

"Yes! Where did you get these?" she pulled them to her chest, cradling the technology. She loved her phone, so very much.

"They were tangled up around you on the rocks you washed up on," he explained. Teddy made a sound of understanding. She still had no memory beyond flying off the bridge and into the water. She didn't remember making it out of what was apparently the ocean, she didn't remember washing up, bleeding profusely onto rocks surrounded by massive sharks, and she sure as shit didn't remember Trafalgar D Water Law finding her while gathering supplies on a nearby island and rushing her back to his ship. It was a blank period.

She didn't even have some vague, half hallucinated memory of a pirate leaning over her with sun haloing his face as he tenderly touched her cheek before checking her pulse, but that would be pretty cool if she did.

Although, knowing Law, it would have been much less touching and a lot more professional. Him checking her pulse first, making a tourniquet, or even just separating her limbs from each other, which was a very weird thought that she didn't know she cared for. She liked her autonomy, thank you very much,

"You're the absolute best," she told Penguin, smiling hugely at him. The boy pulled his hat down around his ears, turning red. He was cute. They were all cute. Teddy turned, and almost walked right into Law's chest.

She looked up, finding herself only a short space from him. Her smile didn't dim.

"Do you like, go out of your way to recruit cute people for your crew?" she asked abruptly. She heard Clione choke behind her.

Law's mouth curved sideways, upwards.

"If you think the crew's 'cute', what do you think of the captain?"

Teddy laughed at him, and dumped her bag of winnings into his arms. He caught it, probably more on instinct than anything else.

"I think he's a hot guy I owe a lot too."

* * *

Angie waited until they were at the next island to take off. She took her portion of the spoils of the raids, maybe a little more, before she slipped away in the cover of night.

Captain Buggy might not be too happy that his little water bearer had disappeared under the stars, but she couldn't find it in her heart to care. She felt bad, she felt callous, but she needed to get away from the crew. She needed to find a way to her sisters.

She would never find Kit, but the others… where would they go? What would they do? How could she find them?

Maybe the water would tell her, if she asked nicely, but she didn't want to. She could still remember how cold it was the last time she saw her mother. When the woman had sunk into the dark depth of the water, her long dress swirling around her ankles while her hair spread around her, fluttering in a watery halo.

She wasn't supposed to remember the day she slipped away, into the waves. She knew she had been too young, and some days she wondered if it was just a dream that she only thought she remembered.

It was the only memory she might have had of their mother, and her first memory of water.

Angie picked her way across the rocky shore of whatever island they were on, trying hard to focus on her sisters but all she could think about was the water.

The ocean pulled her, a siren song that even Kit could never sing, and she fought to turn away from it. Fear choked her, and she found herself running inland. Away from the sea, away from the pirates. And, probably, away from her family.

Angie found herself rushing through spindly trees that smelled like lemons but bore no fruit, the branches reaching out to snag her clothes, tearing at her shirt and her pants, pulling, pulling. Twigs tangled in her hair and smacked her face.

She ran, far away into the night.

* * *

Will may not have had much patience, but even she wasn't about to fight someone over something as simple as peeling potatoes.

While Tai, who was supposed to be an actual marine instead of a fake one, fought the cook over whether or not they had peeled enough potatoes, Will made a game out of what she was doing. Too see how many skins she could get off without breaking in a row, so far she had a record of fifteen.

Gregory, who ruled the kitchen with an iron fist, had barely batted a glance at her when Captain Daavos had handed her over to him to work. He was a stern man, but she thought he was fair. He expected everyone to do their part, and that was something she was sure she could manage.

Especially if it something as simple as peeling potatoes.

Will had only ever known Dad, she wasn't like Kit. In their house, with five girls and a man who had to work to support them they had to spread the responsibility around. They all had to take turns cleaning and cooking, Kit was the only one who got to learn to drive from Dad, and then she taught the rest of them on her own.

So, she pretended that she was peeling potatoes for her family, and ignored Tai's complaining. Seventeen, twenty, thirty, it didn't matter how many stupid potatoes she had to peel, if it got her to the Grand Line. She would find her way to Alabasta from there. Maybe masquerade as a Billion, or whatever they were called, in the Baroque Works.

Gregory and Tai kept fighting, even when an officer poked his head into the kitchen. This was obviously not a new occurrence.

"Hey, girl!" he barked at her, and Will looked up. She lowered the little paring knife she'd been using, not trusting herself enough to keep all her fingers if she peeled without looking.

"Yes?" she prompted, sitting straighter. Trying to look like a marine.

"Captain says you're going to bring him his dinner personally." It wasn't a request. Will didn't like it, and it actually stopped the fight between Tai and Gregory.

"Yes, sir," she frowned, but didn't argue. This was her way to get to her sisters. She would do whatever she had to. She just hoped it wasn't going to end up being some weird sex thing. She didn't like weird sex things.

The officer disappeared and the trio was left to cook again, although it felt like the other two fought more than they worked. Like cats and dogs. Like Kit and everyone.

Some hours later saw Will carrying a tray out of the kitchen and to the captain's quarters. Why she couldn't use the rolling cart that was literally gathering dust in the corner, she didn't know, but it was stupid.

She knocked once and walked inside, carefully balancing the tray on one hand and using the other to shut the door. The room of the Captain was nice, with dark wood and a bright red carpet spread across the floor. A solid desk was bolted down, and bookcases were sealed shut against water. There was a couch, or maybe a bed, built in by where the window was. Captain Daavos stood in front of it, gazing out over the sea.

Will set the tray down on the desk and turned to leave quickly.

"Hold on," Davos ordered. She had to stop and turn around to see him, frowning ever so slightly. Her stomach twisted with nerves. Was he going to ask her to do something weird?

"Don't look at me like that, little girl," he scolded, smiling at her from under a beard turning from black to grey, "I won't do anything unsavory to you."

"I'm not that little," she couldn't keep from saying. She still leaned towards the door. She was shorter than all these crazy men, but that was irrelevant.

"No, of course not. But you are littler than me. And you are much littler than the Vice Admiral we're about to meet up with."

Will jerked upright. "Vice Admiral! No one told me anything about those!"

Daavos arched a brow at her. "From the way Jordan talked, I didn't think that it would stop you from making the trip."

Her lips thinned into a line. "No, no. You're right, it wouldn't stop me. I guess I'll just avoid him."

"He'll notice if you do that," Daavos shook his head. "Just treat him like your superior and be done with it. Act like a marine."

Will said, her voice pitching, "I'm not a marine!" Daavos was unphased. He turned and walked towards her until he could lay a hand on her shoulder, looking down at the young woman.

"Then be a liar."

* * *

By day break she had stumbled into a sleepy little town at the base of a mountain. It was about the tallest thing that she had ever seen. Even the tallest mountain in Iowa, Hawkeye point, paled in comparison for height. It would had sat in the shadow of this monster.

Angie didn't know what she was going to do to get by here. She only had so much treasure, and she still had to find a way to find her sisters, or get them to come to her. She was so lost.

* * *

Peggy was thankful that Sanji knew to only give them small portions when dinner came around, or else she was pretty sure she would have lost her self control and tried to inhale everything at once.

She had never understood how anyone could be obsessed with food until the time came where she didn't have any. And now it sat before her, steaming meat and rice crackers and a glass of water, and she swore she had never loved anything or anyone more than she loved Black Leg Sanji.

She was happy enough to cry.

"Thank you," she grabbed his arm when he set the plate down in front of her and looked up into the chef's black eyes. She was utterly genuine. She could have kissed him, if she were her twin.

Sanji gave her a lopsided smile and danced away to wait on Nami.

Peggy was very careful not to inhale the food, no matter how much she wanted to. Tom had learned his lesson from the water and ate much slower than he had drank earlier.

Peggy looked around them as she chewed, slowly, savoring every bite. They were on the _Going Merry_ , a small ship with a sheep's head on the front. The bow? No, that wasn't right. The point? Still not it. Around her sat Luffy, Usopp, Sanji, Nami, and Zoro, who had barely looked at her since she had arrived. Peggy liked One Piece. It didn't consume her life, but she had a T- Shirt with the Strawhat jolly roger and a collection of the first few seasons. It was something that the girls would put on in the background when they were all home busy, or something three out of five would crowd around manically when new episodes came out.

She had thought, once or twice, about what it would be like to live there. Never in her wildest dreams had she considered that she would be living without her sisters.

In late night whispers she and Kit joked about their own pirate crew. Will would be the captain, and Kit would be the combatant. Teddy would be their doctor and Angie would be their navigator.

This pirate crew was incomplete. They didn't have their doctor, they didn't have their archeologist, shipwright, or musician. So, this was before Alabasta. This was far before Alabasta, Vivi was nowhere to be seen.

"Hey, miss navigator?" she smiled at her own private joke when Nami looked at her. "Where are we, do you know?"

"Oh! We're actually on our way to Reverse Mountain."

"Are you going to a different Blue?" Tom asked, his plate now empty. Nami shook her head.

"We're going to the Grand Line!" Luffy announced, grinning hugely. Tom made a face.

"I'll get off on the Red Line, thanks," he muttered.

Peggy bit her lip. This was the opportunity of a lifetime. And, knowing her twin, Teddy was already in the Grand Line. Kit, too, would be there. One stirring the pot, the other educing sailors.

"Would it be alright if I stuck around for a bit?" she asked, "My sisters are somewhere there, and I need to find them."

Luffy's smile didn't drop a watt. "Sure!"

Peggy's shoulders dropped and a weight she didn't know she'd been holding faded off. A smile lit her face. Her adventure was about to begin.

* * *

Dark eyes watched the glass ball that swirled with seafoam. The girl vanished from sight, fading away to be replaced with another. Tall, her blonde hair dipped violet and chopped off around her ears.

When she turned a vicious smile to the boy she lay atop a laugh echoed out of the sphere, muffled by water.

"Must we watch my daughter like that?" one of the three people in the room asked, making a face. Shadows cast across a sharp face, twisted into a grimace. The ball clouded with sea foam again.

"Very sorry," the only woman lied, folding her hands in her lap. "There you have it, dearie. Our deal is complete."

"Not yet," the third part countered, staring out at the pair from under a high hood. "The only one who's started acting against the government is her," he nodded to the now empty ball.

"She's strong," the woman frowned at him, offended.

"But, she isn't my strongest daughter," the first man added. " _She_ won't act until she has to. Until there's no one else who can. She doesn't have the heart."

"She doesn't have _a_ heart," the woman retorted. The father rose to his feet, baring his teeth.

"What do you know about them?!" he snapped, taking a step. "You don't know them, you're just using them, and ruining their lives."

A liquid shrug rolled under a fine gown. "I'll grant them a boon when this over. After all," she showed him a smile with too many teeth. "I always pay my debts. Isn't that right, Dragon?"

Dragon, who was father but not of any girl, thinned his lips and longed for the days when these two got along


	6. Curiouser and Curiouser

Teddy looked down at the thin red line drawn across her arm. It was a thin cut, nothing compared to what the scars around it had been like when she had first awoken in the company of Trafalgar D. Water Law, whose name she loved more than certain dead relatives. He had patched her up and mended every cut on her body.

She felt bad going to him now after doing something so stupid.

Teddy narrowed her bottle-green eyes at the cut on her arm, silently willing it to close on its own. If she squinted, it looked like it was a little smaller.

Damn. She was going to have to tell Law she's managed to cut herself on a piece of metal in the wall. Maybe hide what had really happened. Make it sound bad ass. Like, she'd been cornered by… by a cat? Were there cat's here? Someone tried to infiltrate the sub and she heroically threw herself at them and god herself cut in the ensuing scuffle.

Yep, that was perfect. And then the perpetrator had disappeared before she could bring him in for questions.

It had been a fierce battle, one waged with her flexibility and grace. In it she was wearing pretty armor that was useless because she was so good she didn't actually need a breast plate. She just needed something to keep her boobs looking pretty, that was how good she was at fighting.

Teddy lifted her hand to knock on Law's office door. It was technically the Captains Quarters, but everyone called it his office. Law was the only one who got his own room. Everyone else slept in bunks that folded out of the walls, stuffed together like sardines. Except for Teddy and Ikkaku, who were the only girls on board. They got a room just to the two of them.

Teddy stepped back when the door slid open. Law looked down at her, and the blood on her arm. He was so much taller than she was, it was ridiculous. Law was, according to Oda, about 6'3. That was a full ten inches taller than Teddy.

She loved it. Tall guys were the best.

"What did you do?" he sounded like her dad did whenever she came back with some stupid hurt. Exasperated more than anything else.

She remembered coming home at three in the morning once, stumbling in when her legs failed her. Even though she was missing most of the leg of her pants and a good amount of skin she hadn't lost any blood then. Dad had taken one look at her and asked the exact same question, while dad stood behind him and watched with his mouth twisted. While one dad was loud and never really stopped talking the dad that she shared blood with hadn't said a word since the day Kit was born.

"I um," her lies fell apart when she looked up into Law's eyes. "Cut it open when I was in the kitchen. Sorry."

"After I went to all the trouble to fix you before," Law shook his head at her. "Go sit in the chair."

She slipped past him to go sit in the spinny office chair he had. Most of the walls were overtaken by books, thick medical tombs that she had to work hard to read the names of. Law really knew what was inside all of these books?

Strength, smarts, and handsome as sin. Teddy was totally fucked.

"I can just put some bandaids on it," she offered. It wasn't even really bleeding.

"No," Law said blandly. "It needs stitches. You don't get lidocaine."

Now that was a word Teddy was familiar with! It numbed her when the doctors had to stitch things up. Teddy had a long history of being very badly hurt. Rarely did she need blood transfusions though. Her blood typically stayed where it was.

"Is that my punishment?" she teased. The chair was big enough that she could sit cross legged while she waited for Law to fetch the first aid kit in the room. She swore there was one around every corner of the sub. The one in Law's office was in a trunk situated beneath his bed. It was about a mile thicker than the one she and the others were subjected to. Perks of being a captain, she guessed.

"If you didn't do stupid things, I wouldn't have to punish you." Law came to her and took her arm in one hand. His brows furrowed at the cut.

"Don't tempt me like that, captain," Teddy grinned at him. When his mouth just twitched a little her smile dimmed. "Something wrong? Are you okay, Law?"

" _I'm_ fine. You're not bleeding as much as you should be," he poked at the cut on her arm. Teddy twitched. The blood started to flow more freely. Law squinted up at her while Teddy frowned at her arm.

"Well. What do you think that mean?" her stomach twisted in nervousness.

"I don't know yet," Law said simply. He wiped the blood away and started putting in the stitches. Teddy did her best not to pull away when the needle pulled her skin together. It sucked.

At least her doctor was cute.

When Law finished her arm and put his supplies away Teddy waited for him to come back before she motioned for him to bend down towards her. With one hand she slid her now-charged phone to the camera. Law humored her and got closer to her height. Close enough for Teddy to slip her arm around his neck and pull him down so she could kiss his cheek.

The click of her camera immortalized the shock on his face.

* * *

Peggy sat criss cross on one of dining chairs in the _Going Merry's_ helm. She felt awkward in Nami's clothes. She didn't fill them out nearly as well, so they were loose and unpleasant. Consequently, she had commandeered Luffy's blue vest until she could get something that actually fit her. Everything else had been so covered in salt and shit that she had been more than willing to lite it all on fire.

The only thing she had left from her old life was her boots, her hair clip, and the canoe that had saved her life.

So there she sat, in shorts a mile shorter than anything she ever willingly wore and a vest with no goddamn bra while she waited for everyone to come inside from the storm. She hadn't gone out with them.

In fact, she hadn't been doing much of anything since she got there. She was way too weak for any hard labor, not that Sanji would have let her do any anyhow. The closest she got was what little physical therapy she could remember doing from when she'd broken her leg the summer of her junior year. Past that it was just her reading whatever Nami had lying around and talking to whoever was closest.

Both of those things weren't really anything she cared for. She liked reading, but being only able to read ruined most of it. People were okay but these people were _loud_. It was like none of them had ever heard the word 'chill' before. Zoro was a pleasant exception to that.

Tom sat in the corner, looking a little green around the gills.

By the time they had found her all Peggy really had left of her was her bones. Working up the muscle she had had working on Red Bend Ranch was going to be a long, trying procedure.

All of these things added up to one simple fact.

Peggy was going fucking insane.

She had always had a hard time sitting still for long. She had too much energy, all of them did, it came from a mother that she couldn't' remember knowing. Their inheritance from Ophelia was a complicated thing. Almost all of what they were came from their dad, but what came from their mom was… different.

Peggy shook her head to rid it of those thoughts.

She was bored. She hated this. She had to be doing something! Goddamnit.

Peggy picked up a pen from where Nami had left some of her maps and, with nothing else to do, she started touched the table between her spread fingers. She started slowly, clicking the pen against the wood. She remember long nights in the bunkhouse with Wyatt and Sam, playing cards to pass the time while the snow mounted up outside them. Hours they had had to spend cooped up with only each other for company.

Sam had been the first one to teach her how to play this, pulling a nail file out of her bag and demonstrating on the small table they kept in with them. Wyatt had almost lost his finger the first time they played.

"Gather up all of the crew, It's time to ship out Bink's brew," Peggy tapped the table with each syllable. She started slow, minding her coordination, before she slowly worked up speed. "Sea wind blows. To where? Who knows? The waves will be our guide!"

"I know that song!" the door burst open and the others tumbled in, Luffy in the lead grinning like mad. Of course, when wasn't he?

"O'er across the ocean's tide, rays of sunshine far and wide, birds they sing of cheerful things, in circles passing by!" Luffy sang. He flung himself into the seat beside her. Peggy smiled at him and pulled his cheek. She didn't know why, but she really liked it.

"Sounds like you know it better than I do. Where'd you hear it?" As if she didn't already know.

"Shanks taught it to me when I was a kid! Him and his crew sang it all the time. We had so much fun! Shishishi!"

"Red Hair Shanks?" it was a useless questions, but she didn't want to slip up and say something she wasn't supposed to know.

"Yep! He's the one that gave me this hat!" Luffy pointed to the top of his head.

"Oh yeah? It sure suits you, Luffy," she propper her chin in her hand, elbow on the table. "What's going on?"

"I'll tell you what's going on," Nami marched over and slapped a map on the table. Peggy pulled her arm away quickly. "The gateway to the Grand Line is a mountain."

Peggy didn't pay much attention to the explanation of Reverse Mountain. She already knew all about it. She was more interested in playing with Luffy's fingers. She had a weird game of cats cradle going on when the storm outside stopped.

She didn't remember this happening. Did she?

"Hey, what's going on?" Usopp poked his head at the porthole, trying to peer outside.

"Did we enter- shit, the Calm Belt!" Nami realized. "We've entered a Calm Belt!"

While she started freaking out and explaining it to everyone else Peggy struggled to recall how they'd gotten out of the Calm Belt in the first place. She didn't remember much about the Reverse Mountain arc. She remembered a lot about Alabasta, a frickin ton about Enies Lobby all the way through to the Whole Cake Island and-

"Reverie!" she sat bolt upright. She was missing it! Fuck!

Her declaration was met with dead silence.

"...bless you?" Usopp tried.

"Ah ha. Yeah. Well. It's like. Fortify?" she laughed awkwardly, lying through her teeth. Usopp squinted at her.

"What Blue did you say you were from?" he asked, leaning across the table from her.

Peggy looked straight at him. "We are all children of the sea, Usopp."

The ship started quaking. Peggy went tumbling to the floor, knocking her head into Zoro's stomach. She might as well had smashed herself against a wall.

"Zoro! Don't go hitting a lady!" Sanji aimed a kick at his face. Zoro, of course, stepped back. The end result was Peggy getting a foot to the face.

"What were you saying about hitting a lady?" Zoro asked dryly. Peggy gripped her face, doubled over in pain. Sanji was one of the strongest members of the crew and she'd been kicked in the face by him. Her nose wasn't broken, which was nice, but it was bleeding. How nice to actually have enough water in her body to bleed.

Now that was something she never thought she'd be thankful for.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! How could I hurt such a beautiful woman!" Sanji wailed. The ship jumped under them. Peggy yelped and latched onto the most solid person she could. Namely Zoro. If he noticed her grip on his arm he didn't show it when he and the others went sprinting outside in time to see a giant sea monster rise up underneath a ship.

"Oh snap," Peggy stared at it's massive eyes, fixed firmly on the ship balanced on its nose. The Sea King reared its head back. A shudder ran through the whole ship and everyone on it. One jerk, then the second, and at last.

It sneezed.

Peggy screamed and held onto Zoro for dear life. To his credit when he hunkered down on the ship he was nice enough to put his hand on her back and keep her from flying off into the sea. Again.

Would the Sea Kings swallow her, the way the ocean had swallowed Ophelia nineteen years ago?

They wound up bouncing right back into the storm.

"Well," she said, "That was fun."

Peggy was surprised to find she was being honest. It had been terrifying, but something about the thrill had twisted her stomach into knots. Her hands were shaking, but she couldn't get the grin off of her face.

Even her first time on a mustang hadn't compared to that.

"Careful," Zoro warned as he pried her hands off of his arm. "You're starting to look like a real Straw Hat, with a smile like that."

Peggy's face got hot and she looked away quickly. Towards the light that shone in the distance. This was it. The portal to the Grand Line. After this there was no turning back to. There was nothing for her to go back to anyways.

"Alright!" Luffy grinned. "This is it! We should have a launching ceremony."

"Yeah!"

"Hey!"

Sanji kicked his foot up on a barrel, hands in his pockets. He smiled.

"I'm going to find the All Blue!"

"I'll become King of the Pirates!"

"To be the greatest swordsman."

"To draw a world map."

"To- to become a brave man of the sea!"

Luffy looked at Peggy expectantly. The rest followed his gaze, each one smiling at her. Peggy's breath caught in her throat. They couldn't really mean for her to-

Well. If that was the case.

Peggy stamped her boot down with theirs. If there was anyone she wanted to throw her lot in with in this crazy world, it would be the Straw Hat Pirates.

"To find my family!"

* * *

A thousand miles away Kit twisted out of the way of a blade aimed at her throat. She grinned, lifting a pistol to point it between bright eyes. A smile even wider than her own spread across the redheads face, baring teeth at her.

"Better watch it," he warned, knocking her arm away. In the same movement he twisted around her, locking her much smaller body against his own. The dark coat caught the wind, twisting it around the pair.

"You're the one that had a gun to your head," she turned a feral smile up at him.

"But look who's getting the shaft now."

Kit leaned up and kissed him hard enough they both came away with crimson lips.

"Bring it on, Red."

* * *

Angie grew very still when she felt the sea change its tide in her veins. A familiar shift, a pressure from deep within that had happened the first time she had boarded Buggy's crew, and when they had been approached by the other ship they had fought.

A devil fruit user was nearby.

The girl knew she should have stayed where she was, holding a small spring of water sprinkling across the plants in the garden. She had spent the last week or so using her powers to try and help everyone who was able to pay her, and even some who couldn't.

It was easy for her to filter impurities from the river, a simple task to show off and fill glasses in the diner a few times a day. She didn't mind sleeping under a tree, the rain had never hurt her before.

This island was nice, a touch colder than the one she had run away from Buggy whilst on, but the clown had yet to appear and that was fine by her.

Unless this was Buggy, but it felt a little different. Warmer, somehow. With its own pulse.

It made her feel pleasantly warm from the inside.

Angie finished watering the begonias and collected a few bills from the woman who had offered her the short job. She was more than aware that she was a charity case, but that was fine. Until she figured out what she was really do, she could life with it. Even if it hurt her pride, if that was what it took to fund her way to her sisters, she would deal.

Angie took the street at a jog, passing by quaint little houses and modestly dressed folks that inhabited them. She passed by the shopping district, following her gut feeling until it lead her to the docks. There were the usual fishing boats, and a larger merchant ship that Angie briefly considered to be the holder of the devil fruit before she noticed a single sail sticking up above the wood.

A black flag was furled up above it.

A pirate ship.

Angie drew up short. Nope, nope. She had had enough of pirates now, Buggy was more than enough pirate for her. She didn't care to find out if this pirate was decent sort or the rotten type. So, Angie turned on her heel and started walking away.

She stopped by a familiar voice calling to her back.

 _Travis Willingham_?

Bewildered, Angie turned around and felt her heart come to a stop.

Portgas D. Ace, unmistakeable to her eyes, climbed up onto the dock and offered her a friendly smile and a wave.

"Sorry. Hello, miss. I was wondering if you could give me directions?"

* * *

Monkey D. Garp was an absolute mammoth of a man.

Will could say with absolute confidence that she had seen a human being as big or as strong as he was. For once she grateful Teddy wasn't around to make some stupid innuendo about dogs.

Garp looked down at the kitchen line up that she was a part of. Gregory stood on one side of her, tense as a board, and Kai was shaking in his boots on the other side. Will was sure that, if this had been where she had first come out of the water, she would have peed herself in fear.

He was flanked by a weird guy in a long black coat, a couple of vaguely familiar looking kids, and a man smoking two cigars at the same time.

Not now. Now, this was just one more on a long, long, _long_ list of people who could kill he with a napkin. So she stood still, back straight and chin lifted to look Garp in the eye. A hundred burning questions pushed at the back of her teeth but she swallowed them all. The marine's were just a convenient way for her to get to Alabasta, to get to her sisters. That was all.

So she needed to keep her mouth shut no matter how much she wanted to talk.

"What's wrong girly, aren't you scared of a Vice Admiral?" Garp was grinning at her. Well, he had asked…

"I'm Wilhelmina, sir. And no more than I'm afraid of everyone else stronger than me. Sorry, sir."

Garp threw his head back and laughed. Gregory was staring at her like she had lost her damn mind. Which, maybe she had. All evidence pointed to her being totally insane.

"Good answer! Here, I've got something for you!" he drew his fist back. Will blanched. Oh no. Nonononono.

"Fist of LOVE!" he punched her. Will shrieked and threw her arms in front of her face. She was braced for pain.

It. Never came.

Will cracked her eye open to see what everyone else saw. Her arms had changed into shining dark steel. Everyone else was staring at her with wide eyes. One of the cigars had actually fallen out of Smoker's mouth. Garp the Fist looked down at her, where the massive fist had been blocked by her crossed arms.

"I… didn't mean to do that," she said slowly.

Garp pulled his arm back, his shoulders shaking. He burst into louder laughter and punched her again. This time, he wasn't holding back as much. She went flying into a wall, crashing straight through.

"Ow," she said to the ceiling.

Garp looked over his shoulder and said something her ringing ears couldn't pick up. The whole point of all of this was that she wasn't supposed to draw attention to herself. To make things worse, there was something these people didn't know about her.

She couldn't use Haki


	7. Training and Trailers

Teddy wasn't too proud to admit that she was a pretty bad student. She didn't do the whole essay thing, she hated papers and loathed being told she was doing math wrong when she got the answer right anyways. She never did care about the pressure they tried to put on students to get a good college. She hated high school enough, why would she pay thousands of dollars to go somewhere worse?

The only thing that she had ever liked was her BMZ class. Botany, Microbiology and Zoology was about the most fun she's ever had. They got to grow their own plants and eat whatever came out, once a week someone would stick their hand in the salamander tank to see if it would bite them and at the end of the year they got to dissect a dogfish.

Anatomy, the ones detailed in Law's medical books, was about the same.

She friggin loved it.

It had started the day she had asked Law, partially out of a joke, if he would teach her about the human heart. Then he had pulled out a book, opened it to a good page, and it all went downhill from there.

That was weeks ago. Teddy had been working her way through his library, since she was now banned from the navigation room, the engine room, and the kitchen unless it was an emergency. Law, she figured, thought the whole situation was pretty funny if he was giving her permission to hang out in his private space, read his personal medical journals, and use his own paper to write notes and make connections.

She had been in and out of his room so many times she had no problem letting herself in.

Which was how she found herself in Law's quarters, alone. The shower sounded from behind a door she had learned lead to the bathroom, the only sound in the room.

Teddy wasn't rude enough that she would ambush him in his own room when he was getting out of a shower, so she turned to go and wander around what few areas of the ship she was still allowed to travel. Up until a voice caught her ears.

_Where are you going, little one?_

Teddy sucked in through her teeth. That almost sounded like her… her mother. But that was impossible. Her mother was gone, fallen into the sea a little after Angie was born. Teddy had only been three at the time. She barely remembered it. But she remembered Ophelia's voice.

The young woman turned around, slowly, trying to figure out whether or not she was going crazy.

_Crazy? No, no, you're as sane as anyone. That blood that pumps through your veins, is it human? Are you? Oh, my. Come here, little one. Let me see you._

Teddy's feet moved on her own, drawing her to where Law's favorite sword was propped up on the wall next to where his bed was.

_Well aren't you a sight for sore eyes. Not that I have any!_

Teddy's whole face spasmed. "Skull- sword joke?"

The laughter that went through her brain sounded like metal clashing together. A shiver ran through her spine. Ophelia's laugh had sounded like a gull crying from the sea. Also unpleasant.

_Oh I like you~ So much more fun than my master. Won't you take me from him?_

Teddy frowned. "Not on your life."

_Aw, why? A little crush on him, maybe?_

"Dude, I'm twenty two. I don't do crushes. Besides, I don't need you. He does. For the choppy thing."

_Maaah, why don't you just try holding me. Take my hilt, come one, little girl What's your name? Bloody Mary? No, that's not it._

"I already told you-"

"Are you talking to Kikoku?"

Teddy shrieked and turned around, her feet catching one another. She smashed into the ground and was left sitting on her bruised but, looking up at a very, very shirtless Trafalgar D. Water Law. Water dripped from his dark hair, down across freshly shaved cheeks to a barely damp chest where a heart stretched across lean muscles in black ink.

"I'm going to put a bell on you, captain," Teddy threatened. She tried to calm her racing heart. "Help me up?"

Law did, gripping her hand firmly in his and Teddy had the abrupt realization that she should not have asked for help. His hands were warm and strong and she was going to end up as wet as he was if she didn't stop staring.

"Mhmm. You didn't answer my question."

Teddy puffed out her cheek. "If I say he was talking to me first, will you tell everyone to keep sharp things away from me?"

"You're still banned from sharp things after the kitchen incident," Law reminded her. He was studying her, the way he had when she hadn't bled right. His eyes were intense and focused, but not cold or closed off. Just, curious.

"Mmmm, yeah. I guess so," that didn't answer her question, though.

_Afraid he'll think you're crazy, little girl? Bloody mary, bloody mary, what happens if I say it three times?_

"I'm not figgin Beetlejuice," Teddy would have elbowed Kikoku if it were a human being. She realized belatedly that she had just said that in front of Law. He was going to think she was crazy! Kikoku started laughed again.

Until Law glanced at it and said, "stop teasing her."

Teddy faltered. "You heard that?"

"Yeah. It's a thing that happens with cursed swords, like Kikoku. They can form telepathic bonds, usually just with their owners. He must like you."

"Lucky me," Teddy said dryly.

Law smiled at her expense. He really was much more expressive than people gave him credit for. Sure he didn't laugh aloud all that much or scream in fury if something went wrong. He was pretty well collected.

Still, if you paid attention it was easy to see how he was feeling. Or maybe it was just Teddy. With one dad mute and the other always raising his voice no matter the mood, she had learned early on how to get by with small changes in expression and body language.

"Were you here for something?" Law prompted. "Or just to stare at me?"

Teddy grinned at him, caught. "Why, can I do that?"

"A picture would last longer. "

"Babe, do not tempt me. I'm professional photographer. "

Law gave her a look and Teddy held up her hand, and the book within it. "Can I have another one?"

"You really went through it that fast?" Law's smile increased. Teddy straightened up, a grin stretching across her face. Law had a nice smile. She wanted to see more of it.

"Yeah. I've still got that dictionary, but I'll probably give it back soon. I think I've got most of the fancy shmancy medicine words now."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. And if I don't, I have a cute doctor I can ask directly. Right?" Teddy linked her arm with Law's, turning a massive smile up at him as she leaned onto his bare shoulder.

Law didn't shake her off. He drew her over to his desk.

"Are you still focusing on circulation?" he asked. He let her hang onto him while he went over his vast collection. "I'm running out of those. We might have to pick up something new. How do you feel about visiting an island with me soon?"

"It's a date!"

* * *

Angie watched in utter amazement as Ace put away more food than she even knew a person could order. A pile of plates was steadily growing next to him, getting higher and higher as he tore through food.

Angie had finished her fries half an hour ago and Ace was still going, downing an entire chicken before he finally pushed his plate away.

"Hey," he addressed Angie, "You said you might know where I can find my guy, right?"

Angie nodded slowly. Ace wasn't going to pay for that food. No way. Angie had enough to cover her tab but that was it.

"Yeah, I might. I have an idea, at least."

"Great. Alright, then let's get out of here," Ace stood up and settle his hat back on his head. Mary, the restaurant owner, started over to collect their checks. Ace glanced at her, flashed a smile at Angie, and grabbed her hand.

Angie didn't have time to yell when Ace hauled ass, and her, out of the restaurant and into the bright light of the sun. Angie wasn't even touching the ground. She was just flapping comically behind him, muffling a scream into her neckerchief. Ace, with a banner made of Angie, took her running all the way out of the town while Mary shouted obscenities at their backs.

_Why is this my life?_

* * *

Will muffled a scream around the mouth guard she had jammed between her teeth and tossed herself to the ground. The cannonball went sailing over her head, crashing into a boulder and turning it into dust.

She lifted her head, the cap of the Marine hat shadowed her eyes and hid the tears pricking at their corners. Damn it, she hadn't signed up for this! All she had wanted was to see her sisters again. Instead she was getting thrown around with Coby and Helmeppo like a ragdoll. All because her instincts had told her a week ago that she needed to not get hit by a massive fist.

Will pushed herself to her feet, her temper flaring in her chest. The blackness that had overtaken her arms crept further to her hands, and up past her elbows. Her hands twisted with the new armor, sharp points pushing from her fingertips in mock claws.

She dug them into the earth and lifted her face, teeth bared at Garp the Fist. He didn't so much as blink at the darkness in her gaze when she threw herself at him. Will swung her arms at him violently. The gifted dagger had been put aside, for a different training. This was supposed to be strictly hand to hand.

She didn't so much as scratch Garp. He swung his arm and landed a hard blow on her sternum, sending her careening through a wall. She slumped in the rubble, breathing hard. Against her own will the darkness crept up her arms, nearing her shoulders. She didn't have to look to know that there was a patch growing across her stomach and chest too. Her body had realized that its most vital parts might be targeted and was trying its best to protect her.

Like her dad, the one she shared her green eyes and her lack of wisdom teeth with, the steel wrapped itself around her to try and keep the world from doing her harm.

Half of her brain was cursing like a sailor over the fact that her planning had gone to waste, over the knowledge that this power she had was drawing too much attention to her. They were detouring from Alabasta to stock up on some little island, and time was wasting.

The other half was calculating how much stronger she had to be if she was going to survive in the Grand Line. She had no interest in being a pirate. She had no desire to be any sort of Marine officer or defender of justice. She didn't care about any of that. She only wanted to see her sisters again and she knew that to do that she had to be stronger, and that she should be grateful to Garp for trying to help her.

Her rage filled heart was telling her that she needed to take Garp down, now.

Will gripped a slab of rubble so hard it exploded into dust and stood up on shaking feet. Her skin may be hard but what lay underneath felt like jelly. She had no bruises, and Garp hadn't broken any bones, but she had been doing this for hours and it was starting to show.

Without warning, her knees gave out and Will crumpled into the rubble. She didn't even scrap her legs. The pants may have torn but underneath was shining black.

Soft footfalls, one set full of purpose and the other a bit more hurried, told her when Smoker and Tashigi rounded the corner.

They found Will glaring murderously at the Vice Admiral. Deep claw marks marred the thick concrete that made up the flooring of the marine base, the wall had a very Will shaped hole in it. On the other side Coby wasn't in much better shape. He was barely twitching and Helmeppo was about the same. His eyes spun swirls in their sockets.

"How far does your haki extend?" Tashigi asked her, kneeling at the other girls side. Her eyes were on the steel that guarded her leg and ribs now through the torn clothes. Will's temper lessened when she looked into the other woman's eyes. Tashigi did not deserve her wrath.

"My whole body, if I want it to," she knew this for a fact, even if 'Haki' was the wrong word for it. If she didn't keep a conscious check on it, it would cover her from head to foot.

"Then why don't you do that?" Smoker looked down at her. He was, by his own nature, a very gruff individual. Strangers would have assumed he was vicious or cruel or something to that effect. Will, contrarily, quite liked him. He was candid, and while he was admittedly hard to read it wasn't much a problem when he was so blunt about everything. If he disliked a person, he had no problem saying it to their face.

"I don't like it," she said simply. Garp looked at the three of them, his eyes meeting Will's through the hole he had made with her body. He shook his head at their performance and turned to leave, pulling a box of rice crackers out of his coat.

Will's skin and soul burned under that look. That disappointment. Where all of their efforts were nothing more than a gnat he was barely bother to brush off.

The darkness tried to wrap around her throat while she focused. On the armor that covered her skin, her skin that covered her body and forced it to move. One leg, then the other, like a puppet on a string until she was standing on weak limbs.

"You never said," she wheezed through her teeth, "that we were done training you old dog!"

Coby stirred on the ground, managing to get and elbow under himself. Will stumbled back through the hole left by her body, movements jerky from an unpracticed puppeteer. She had never had to do this before. She reached Coby in time to help pull him up. Helmeppo choked and pushed his face into dampening dirt. She grabbed one of his elbows, her green eyes fixed on Garp, who had stopped walking away with her petty, sad insult.

Together, they hauled the blond up. His lengthening hair tumbled aside when his head lulled back for a moment. She feared he might pass out. Then his feet got under him and the three of them stood, facing a man they hadn't so much as scratched.

Will didn't know what pushed her like this. The fear of what the Grand Line could do to the weak. The bitterness brought on by Garps dismissal. The roar of her inheritance that dragged at her flesh.

Will flung herself in tandem with Coby and Helmeppo, trying her damndest to disembowel Garp.

She did even worse like this, no fluidity to her movements, no practice or balance just sharp, awkward slashes that didn't even come close.

Even still, she was the last one standing.

Garp drove his fist into her skull and smashed her right into the ground.

She was aware enough, even with her probable concussion, to know that it was Tashigi that Garp left to get her to her room. They had understood on the third day they did this that as long as no bones were broken taking her to the infirmary was a waste of time.

All she suffered from was exhaustion. No pain, except to her pride.

When Tashigi got her upright once more Will lifted her face to look at Smoker. Her brown hair was matted with sweat, her clothes were dirty and gross. She must have looked pathetic but when she looked at Smoker there was a strange expression on his face.

"You're stubborn, and crazy," Smoker told her blandly.

Will was inclined to agree.

* * *

"So," Peggy began, "we've been eaten by a whale."

"Is that what happened?" Zoro looked up at the cheerfully painted sky in Laboons stomach. He detangled himself from Peggy. On the trip into the whale her feet had gone out from under her, knocking her right into the swordsman.

"Yep. Wonder why it looks like this though. Pocket dimension? Or… maybe the whole world just exists in the belly of a whale and we were eaten by another one," Peggy shrugged. She picked herself up off the deck, grimacing when the scrape on her elbow complained.

"What are you going on about?" Zoro glanced at her. Peggy waved her hand dismissively.

"Don't worry about it, I'm just babbling. Nervous habit. Hey look an island!" She pointed off in the distance. Tom, from where he was, was starting to freak out.

"Eaten by a whale, crashed in the ship, eaten by a whale. Margarita's, flint locks, fuck fuck fuck!"

Peggy shot him an irritated frown before she walked to the edge of the boat, peering out at Clover's house. The Merry drifted closer, brought forth on waves of water and probably stomach acid.

Peggy looked down at where Zoro's swords had fallen. In the scuffle they had been tipped out of his grasp and onto deck. She was privately amazed he had let it happen in the first place.

She reached to pick them up before she stopped. Zoro's swords were precious to him. As far as she could recall, besides himself the only person he'd even let touch them was Luffy. The idea of just carelessly touching them, even if it was to return them, was sacreligious. Her fingers twitched and she pulled her hands back, looking again at the little house and pretending the whole thing hadn't happened.

Zoro collected his swords, his eyes unreadable as he regarded Peggy, who ignored it.

Now that the shock of what had happened to her and the truth really started to set it she was getting more giddy, and more nervous. She could hold her own in a fight if it came to it, but the Grand Line, shit this whole world, was leagues beyond the beatings she'd given out in the Wendy's parking lot.

Nervous energy built up under her skin that longer she was on the ship.

Along with it was relief. If this was where they were, her sisters were fine.

When the squid popped out of the sea Peggy's knees locked up completely. She started a quiet mantra of whatthefuckwhatthefuckwhatthefuck under her breath. It didn't stop even when the squid was speared through and dragged towards the island. Even when Clover came walking out, she was still chanting.

"H-hey! If it's a fight you want it's a fight you'll get! We have a canon on our side!" Usopp screamed at the man.

"Whatthefuckwhatthefuckwhat the actual ever loving fuck!"

Zoro glanced at her. "Are you done now?"

Peggy paused, considering.

"Yeah, I think so. Thanks."

"Someone could die if you do that," Clover scolded.

"Oh yeah?" Sanji took a step forwards, his mouth curving a dangerous smile. "Who?"

"Me," Clover said.

Sanji promptly flipped his lid. Zoro held out a hand, like that was going to calm the chef down.

"Hey, don't get so worked up. Old man! Who are you, exactly?" Zoro stood with a casual confidence, a hand on Wado Ichimonji.

"It's polite to introduce yourself before you ask someone else for theirs," Clover scolded, flipping a page in his paper.

"Oh right, sorry," Zoro opened his mouth to introduce himself. He didn't get the chance.

"My name is Crocus, the lighthouse keeper of the Twin Capes, I'm 71 years old, a gemini and type AB blood." Peggy paused. Crocus. She'd gotten his name wrong! A shame cloud formed over her head.

Zoro lunged forwards with shark teeth. "I'll kill him!"

"Hello," Peggy shook off the cloud and waved at him, ignoring Zoro's attempted murder, "I'm Margarita De- er, Devereux Margarita. I'm twenty two, also a gemini and type AB positive."

"The only difference between the two of you is your age?!" Usopp stared at her with his mouth open.

Peggy shrugged. "Yeah, pretty much. My four sisters and I were all born on June sixth, and we all have AB positive. We go to blood drives and give plasma a lot," she added. Mostly Teddy.

"The chances of all of you having AB is rare," Crocus said, levelling her with a look.

"Yeah. Well. We're weird," she shrugged. And wasn't that the truth. No one else would have ended up in this BS situation if their sister tried to change CD's in the middle of a bridge and drove right off. But, she was Peggy Devereux and her whole life was one bad movie.

She could picture it, opening in theatres near your…

_The Western Whistle sounds in the background. Cowboy boots with spurs click into view. The camera pans upwards, across long legs and dark jeans, over red flannel and up to reveal a grimly set mouth. Above that sits the small nose and the green eyes of Peggy Devereux (Jayne Wisener), wearing a black stetson._

_A black horse comes a stop with his head over his shoulder, bridle shining in the red sun that burns across the Utah desert._

_The scene blurs out from red dust to bright green foliage. 'Babes in the woods' from Bo Diddley starts playing. The green trees part to reveal the rest of the girls. Kit (Katie Cassidy) wings an axe into a tree so hard it splits straight down the middle. Will (Amanda Seyfried) is rubbing determinedly at one of their dad's shoulders. It's easy to tell who it is that the girls got their looks from. Erik (Jensen Ackles) signs his thoughts to his husband, Ezekiel (Lee Byung-hun. South Korean was close enough to Vietnamese.)_

_Teddy (Jayne Wisener) comes jogging out of the screen door in short shorts and a thin red shirt strapped slimly over her shoulders. She sits on the other side of Erik (Jensen Ackles), where Ezekiel (Lee Byung-hun) was not. Already stretched out in the sun on the porch is Angie (Kristen Stewart)._

_Peggy (Jayne Wisener) comes from around the house to lean on a post in the ground, in jeans and a t-shirt with a certain jolly roger on it._

_"_ Some people never know what's really out in the worlds _," Peggy (Jayne Wisener) said in the voice over, "_ The dark parts of the planet. Where the roads cross and the waves part. I was never a stranger to any of it. _"_

_Cut to Ophelia (Sarah Lassez) sinking into water, her hair haloing darkness around black eyes._

"It was all so simple back then. Before things changed."

_Kit (Katie Cassidy) screams at Erik (Jensen Ackles) so loud the windows explode. She grabs a backpack and storms out of the house, her leather jacket flapping angrily over her shoulder._

_Angie (Kristen Stewart) holds her hands on either side of a floating orb of water, her fingers trembling and her eyes wide. Behind her, Erik (Jensen Ackles) exchanges a Look with Ezekiel (Lee Byung-hun)._

"Like the seasons change, so did we. We drifted apart."

_Kit (Katie Cassidy) kissed both dads on the cheek and walks out the door with nothing more than a phone in her hand and a small hand gun._

_Will (Amanda Seyfried) holds a duffle bag in one hand, her college acceptance letter in the other. She is squished between her two dads._

_Teddy (Jayne Wisener) hugs Peggy (Jayne Wisener) fiercely. A backpack sits at their feet, a plane ticket in it. Strapped around her neck is a camera._

_"Promise you'll call every day?" Peggy (Jayne Wisener) grips her sisters hands tight enough to cut off circulation. Teddy (Jayne Wisener) grins carelessly._

_"Cross my heart."_

_"One by one my sisters left, and one day so did I," Peggy (Jayne Wisener) sits in a train car in jeans and tennis shoes. A pamphlet for a dude ranch in Utah sits in her lap._

"I thought I could escape the unnatural things that followed my family."

_Peggy (Jayne Wisener) smiles broadly as she looks over a pasture where a band of horses run, chasing the wind. A man sits on the fence, peeling an apple with a knife. A girl leans next to him, her eyes on the horizon. The man turns to smile down at Peggy (Jayne Wisener)._

_"I'm Wyatt," said the man (Scott Eastwood). "That's Sammy."_

_He pointed his thumb over his shoulder at the girl. She pulls back to frown at them._

_"I'm Sam," she (Taissa Farmiga) says._

_Cut to Peggy (Jayne Wisener) trotting on horseback, the black gelding from the first shot under her legs. Her tennis shoes were gone, replaced with boots and the Stetson was in place. They climbed high in the calico mountains, surrounded on both sides by a steep valley. Something dark moved on an arc they passed under, its eyes glowing._

"I was wrong."

_A gunshot echoes in a canyon, music picks up and horses gallop across the open plain, a lone rider on a half wild pony ghosts across the earth ahead of them. A storm breaks overhead, high lighting a skeleton in a black Stetson._

_Wyatt (Scott Eastwood) stands in a dusty, abandoned tavern in the Hope Fields ghost town. A child's laughed runs past him outside, but there is no one there. He holds an old leather book in one hand. To one side stands Peggy (Jayne Wisener) and on the other is Sam (Taissa Farmiga)._

_"We came here chasing our dreams," he reads, "we came here looking for a new beginning and a future where the light might shine on the heads of our children and our children's children. We named our town after what drew us here. What we found, was only nightmares."_

_Lightning flashes and the black gelding rears, his skeletal rider high in the saddle. On all sides, lit up only by the lightning crouch vaguely canine shapes shadows. Red glows from inside sharply pointed mouths._

"No one can escape their heritage. "

_Peggy (Jayne Wisener) turns a bone over in her hands. She sits in the bunkhouse with Sam (Taissa Farmiga) and Wyatt (Scott Eastwood). She closes her fingers around it and when she opens them again the bone is shaped like a knife. A candle flickers across her shadowed face._

_"There's something you've been hiding from is," Wyatt (Scott Eastwood) says quietly._

_Peggy (Jayne Wisener) nods._

"We can not hide from the past. From the truth."

_All three ranch hands are in the saloon again, hiding behind the bar. A dark canine sniffles the ground on the other side, growing close. Sam (Taissa Farmiga) closes her eyes, squeezing them shut as tears start to leak. Wyatt (Scott Eastwood) is clutching his side. Blood stains his fingers._

_Peggy rises slowly to her feet, a white knife in her hand. Blood leaks from her shoulder._

"We can only run towards the future."

_Dramatic music erupts past the silence of the saloon, steadily growing faster._

_Wyatt (Scott Eastwood) jumps from a cliff into a river._

_Sam (Taissa Farmiga) holds an only revolver out, covered in dust and muck as a pack of shadows loom in closer._

_Peggy (Jayne Wisener) stretches her body across the neck of her black horse, eyes flashing in the burning sun set. A skeletal rider comes at her on a dark bay, gun pointed forwards._

_Peggy (Jayne Wisener) lifts a bone over her head and brings it down._

_The music cuts._

_Everything blacks out. Slowly, light comes into focus on a movie poster. Two girls and a man walk away from a sunset where horses run, shadows looming in unnatural shapes at their feet. Shapes with dark teeth and glowing mouths._

_In roughly painted letter at the top it reads 'Inheritance'._

Except that that's a stupid movie title. How the West was Won? No, the Hopeful Three? Bull. New Moon? Ha!

Ghost Rider. Already taken.

Peggy made a face and was immediately pitched off of the deck and straight into the mast of the Merry. She yelled, nothing broken but many things bruised, and looked to see a man dressed like a king holding a bazooka.

Right, she thought , maybe not the best time to zone out.

With a glance at the now furiously screaming Sanji Peggy moved over to where Nami was. She still felt weak, barely more than a skeleton with eyes (and where was Brook to make a Skull Joke when she needed him?) so she knew that she wouldn't be fighting Vivi and… Mr. eight? That didn't sound right. Of course, Peggy didn't give two shits about him. She went to Nami.

"Wanna sit this one out?" She offered.

Nami nodded, making a face.

"Definitely. "

* * *

Kit had never had much luck with… people.

The fact of the matter was, she had a mean temper. She didn't see a single problem with expressing it. If someone pissed her off there was no reason she shouldn't tell them. And if they mocked her for her feelings, she was fine with showing them too. With her fists.

More than once a boy had broken up with her for being too emotional, too in tune with her anger and too unwilling to stuff it down and suffocate like a good little lady was supposed to.

In fact, that was how every relationship she had ever been in had ended. With the boy unable or unwilling to handle her temper.

She never hit them unless she had to, she was a bitch not an abuser. And she had never tried to train a boy to be more like what she wanted. That wasn't who she was. If she had ever started to do things like that, she would have ended it then and there. She had once, when Derek had accidentally pushed a button and cowered when she screamed at him. She had send him home the next day and set him up with her soft spoken baby sister, much more his speed.

Sometimes, the boys would go out with her with the intent of 'fixing' her. Trying to tame the shrew, break her of her temper and wear her down into a good little girlfriend. Those ones usually left with broken noses, or worse.

So yes, her relationships, and even many friendships, had always failed her.

Up until now, at least.

Some days Kit was pretty sure that Teddy crashing was the best thing to ever happen to her.

Waking up on a boat in the strong embrace of the only man to ever take her temper and not drop her for it, this was one of those days.

Kit stretched her legs out as far at she could and wiggled until she was high enough and had a free hand to run slowly through red hair, wildfire in the morning light. More like noon light. They both smelled like cheap liquor, and her head was drumming lightly behind her temples but that was okay.

It was nice, to look at his face when he wasn't awake.

When his strong jaw was slack and his dark eyes were closed off from the world, when the weight of his dreams didn't weigh on his broad shoulders and there was no fight to be had, no war to be fought. Like this, he was beautiful.

He was when he fought too.

The first time she had seen it, a terrible, wonderful thrill had shot straight up her spine and right back down until it tingled in her fingers and her toes. Every time since then, after he was done kicking ass and the adrenaline was still tight under his skin she would drag him off, over her and-

Well, that was no one's business but their own, now wasn't it?

Dark eyes flickered open and he turned his head to squint at her, showing off red bites on his throat and lipstick stains on his cheek.

"Fuck," he grumbled, voice rough, "What time is it?"

"Who cares?" she retorted, leaning over to kiss on top of the red smear.

"Gotta see when we dock," he grumbled. He hoisted himself up, released a hiss, and dropped back next to her.

Kit draped herself across him, relishing in the tight muscles underneath her. A single hand came up to play with the violet tips of her short cropped hair. His eyes closed again and Kit made herself comfortable. Clearly they were here for a while longer.

Yes, Teddy had made a wonderful mistake.

* * *

Dragon exited the dark room quickly, his cape flapping behind him in a dramatic, bat like matter not unlike that of one Severus Snape. The main difference between the two of them was the fact that Dragon hadn't tormented and bullied children and kept on a creepy relationship with a girl he'd called a slur years before.

Dragon had not done that, in fact he'd had a very healthy and beautiful relationship with his wife. The biggest source of friction between them had been the vexing woman he had just left the room holding.

This whole operation, one of his more ambitious and admittedly most reckless one, hinged around how supposedly powerful the five girls were. Dragon ran a hand down the side of his face. He didn't like it. There were too many variables, too many ways for this to all go wrong.

Maybe he should send someone out to check on them? He was especially weary of the girl on the Marine ship. He wanted to keep a closer eye on them. A more active approach to getting them to understand the sorry state of this world.

And, he knew just the person for the job.

His destination decided Monkey D Dragon turned a corner, chose his route, and changed the course of history.


	8. Flirting with Disaster

Never let it be said that Theodosia Deveraux was a coward.

Sure, she didn't run headlong into confrontation or start fist fights over dropped pens. In fact, she had little to no temper at all.

Was she jealous when the girl at the bar practically seated herself in Law's lap? A little, yes. Did she call this perfect stranger a whore or make some snide remark about blonde sluts? No! Because she wasn't a total bitch! Or a hypocrite!

Teddy had done exactly what Jen had done that night, more than once. She was a girl who knew what she wanted, and up until she found herself longing for a bullshit, cheese fest romance with a pirate she had gone for what she wanted with only enough hesitance to make sure the dude was single.

So when Jen started talking in Law's ear something low and soft Teddy didn't grab her by her hair and fling her down into the floor.

She reserved that for the girl with the green hair that had snuck up behind Law and Jen and put a knife between their throats. The music in the bar didn't scratch to a stop the way it did in movies, and guys did not crowd around in a circle chanting about cat fights. She saw Shachi grab Penguin(who was oblivious to the imminent smackdown getting ready to go off behind him) by the jacket. A patron she didn't know scrambled out of the way, hand over his crotch. He knew how these fights went.

Teddy leaned back on the table, giving the stranger long enough to pick herself up off the floor while our young heroine pulled out her dangly earrings and pressed them into Bepo's palm.

"I don't know what this bitch is about," she told her captain. Jen didn't volunteer any information. She didn't need to. The knife hadn't really been going for her.

An elbow driving into Teddy's side distracted her from her conversation. Teddy stumbled back before she caught her balance. She turned in time to see the other woman sprint at her with the knife drawn.

Her blood pounding in her ears Teddy grabbed the lady by the wrist, twisted it until she she heard the bone crack and the woman scream.

Jen leapt from her place on the captains lap with a shout of fury and threw herself at Teddy, who danced out of the way. Literally, she did a one person wave to wiggle from the impact point. Jen went tumbling across a table of drinks.

She lifted her blonde head, now dark and saturated with cheap beer, and bared her strangely sharp teeth at Teddy.

"You!" She snarled. "If you had just left, or looked the other way we would be done with this already! We would have a hundred million beri's and a captains head!"

Teddy's pulse slowed. Her blood stopped beating incessantly in her ears, the rushing fading away. In its place ice slithered into her veins, a cold that gripped her from the inside out. Consciously she knew that there was no way these two ammature assassins would have been able to take Law down. That didn't stop her stomach from lurching at the idea of him being killed.

"As if," Teddy snorted. Jens accomplice staggered to her feet, using her Good hand to smash a bottle on the counter and hold it like a weapon. "That was stupid," Teddy said idly. That shit only worked in the movies.

A voice that sounded suspiciously like Peggy reminded her that she was in an anime.

Teddy ignored this mini-twin of hers and once again caught the green haired woman's attack. This time she hooked her fingers lightly around her wrist, stepped on the outside of her body, and drove her palm against the woman's elbow. With a _snap_ that was a little too familiar to Teddy the arm bent the exact wrong way. Someone in the crowd wretched.

Jen shrieked with her rage and threw herself at Teddy, so low to the ground that the photographer actually leap frogged off of her back to land on the other side. They came together in a grappling match.

The only reason girls pull hair in fights was to bring faces closer for hockey punches, Teddy was no different. Jens skull bounced on the table. Teddy pulled back far enough to drive her knee in between Jens legs.

With a pained wheeze that sounded suspiciously like a brick being dropped on a frog Jen fell to the ground, her eyes rolling into her head. For good measure, Teddy kicked her head one more time.

Leaving the women to wallow in their own failure Teddy picked her way across the floor, minding the broken glass under her boots. She came to a strop in front of the table, ignoring the cackling of Kikoku, and held out her hand expectantly towards Bepo.

The mink obediently returned her earrings. Teddy hummed her discontentment. Something was missing. Something… her gaze wandered to Law, who hadn't moved an inch and looked _far_ too amused for her tastes.

"I think," she said abruptly, "I want another piercing. "

Then, she walked away to get just that, studiously ignoring the eyes that bore holes in the back of her head.

As soon as she was out of the bar that the rest of the Heart Pirates were in she turned and thumped her skull into the wall, a low whine building up in her throat. This was so… so stupid!

She wasn't like this, she didn't get all flustered and nervous or hesitate to make her feelings known. Life was short and she was young and pretty so why the hell was she wasting her time with Law acting like this. If it was anyone else she would have already asked for a date.

But this wasn't anyone else and she knew exactly why she hadn't done any of those things.

She didn't want him to get hurt.

Her own heart; it had been broken before. Cut out. Stomped on. Scarred. She hadn't let that stop her from moving on. She wasn't afraid of the pain that came when blood was squeezed through devastation. She knew she would live past it.

The thing was- he hadn't invited her to join the crew. She was just a tagalong with a debt to be paid to them. She was pretty sure Law enjoyed her company. Positive, in fact.

The thing was- He wasn't the type the mince words. So knowing that he liked her, maybe not enough to go out or screw around (literally) but enough to keep her around and spend time answering her questions as best as he could.

The thing was - he was a hurt person with more scars than she had ever had, angry and willing to burn the world to ashes if it meant getting vengeance for Rocinante or protect his crew. He was cruel, sadistic and he didn't care what happened to innocent people as long as he got what he wanted and for some fucking reason that didn't bother Teddy nearly as much as it should have.

 _The thing was that Trafalgar D. Water Law did not love as easily or as free as she did but when he loved he did so with all of his heart_.

And she, she was Teddy, who did not belong there in the first place. She had a home to go back to, a family that was out there and while she was content to believe that the tides would bring them together as they had once brought Ophelia to their father she knew she would return to them one day.

And what then? Would they disappear into the sunset? Would they go back to the bridge she had driven them off of? Back to the woods in Iowa? Back to their dads?

Teddy groaned and slumped against the wall.

When did life get so complicated?

* * *

Ace had no problem dangling his feet over the water, kicking at the waves from where they sat on a rather decrepit old dock. Angie was significantly less comfortable, and she could actually swim. More than just swim, but still.

"You're not worried about falling in?" she had to ask. Their 'talk' had been postponed by the dine-n-dash, and an episode of narcolepsy that almost gave Angie an aneurysm. Now they sat close to Striker, Ace's little cano, with the dawn light spilling across their shoulders.

"Mmm? The waters only a few feet deep, I could stand up."

"But you have a devil fruit, right?" she frowned at him. She could feel it, intensely. The warmth that floated around him and wrapped around her heart like a soft ribbon. She would have expected fire to hurt more.

Ace cocked his head at her, gunmetal grey eyes meeting her pale ocean blue. She was pinned to a stop, stuck in his gaze. Violet morning light lit up the shadows on his face, the smattering of freckles-

Crap, he was cute.

"How d'you know that?"

Oh. Oh. That was why he was looking at her like that. Because she had said something stupid and reckless. She hadn't been thinking. Crap. Whoops. What did she do? Lie? No, no, she sucked at that.

Didn't she?

She couldn't remember. Her face was getting hot.

"I can see the future."

Did she say that? His eyes were wider, so yes, yes she did. She did just tell a person who was practically a stranger that she could see the future.

"A future," she amended quickly. "Just one timeline. And not that far ahead, either. Have you travelled to Alabasta yet?"

Ace shook his head.

"Then yeah, only a little bit in the future. Maybe, not even a year. Probably more like six month? I don't know."

"Is that how you know where I'll find Teach?"

Was that what they were discussing? Angie nodded quickly at him.

"Is that why the villagers look at you funny?"

All at once the periwinkle light was too bright, it's luminescence faded from a dream of freckle faced boys and a fantasy world to the present. Where Angie sat on an unstable dock, the ocean lapping up towards her bare feet. The world returned to a sharp focus and Angie stared at Ace's eyes, startled. She hadn't thought he was paying that much attention to her.

Abruptly, her lap was very interesting. She folded her hands in it, the red neckerchief clasped tightly between her fingers. She didn't even know why she was still holding it.

"That's… no. They have no idea that I know future things. "

Ace watched her, politely waiting to see if she went on.

She did. With a flick of her wrist the wave coming in jumped, leaping into a water spout. It shook where it was, eager for her bidding. Her stomach flittered with a pleasantness she forced herself to believe was sickness, excitement soured with fear.

"Oh." Ace said. Angie let the water drop. A grin spread across Aces wide mouth. "That's amazing!"

She startled, drawing away from him when he leaned in, his eyes shining.

"It's- huh?"

"I didn't know there was a devil fruit that could control water," he added. He held out his hand, which combusted. Angie's breath caught. She cleared her throat.

"There, there isn't. I haven't eaten a devil fruit. I was born this way. My mom- I don't know why. But that's why they stare at me. They're nice," she said quickly, "they give me work and probably more money that what it's worth. I'm usually just a glorified garden hose. "

"That's good," Ace leaned back on his hand, turning the flaming one over in front of him. "Their fear doesn't get the better of them. "

_Fear._

That was it. The thing she had been trying not see. The thing that she's been stuffing out of her brain ever since she got here. That was the one thing she missed about Buggy.

He wasn't afraid of her, even though he was a coward and he should have been. She had the power to drown him with a thought. Angie licked her lips.

"Yeah," she agreed, drawing her knees to her chest.

"Ah, shit. I wasn't trying to upset you. I'm sorry."

Angie shook her head. "No, no, it's not your fault. I just-"

She stopped. Ace probably didn't want to hear all of her shit. He just wanted to know where Blackbeard would be so he could fight him. Not that she remembered the island it happened on. Had they even said? All she remembered was that he'd almost got into a fight with Luffy on… that one island before Skypeia.

"You just?" Ace prompted politely.

"I just, I don't belong here. I don't think I belong anywhere in this world. I'm… lost. I don't know where my family is. I don't even know if their alive or-"

They were. They were. Of course they were, her sisters were strong. Stronger than her, stronger than anyone she had ever met. Angie forced some measure of certainty into her. They were alive. They were alive and out there.

Ace was silent for a long moment.

"You know, I don't know where my brother is," he said suddenly. "I haven't seen him in about three years."

Angie shifted to look at him better. A soft wind blew, pushing up the brim of Ace's cowboy hat.

"He's always getting into trouble. Crazy kid. He get's eaten by everything," Ace made a face that got Angie laughing.

"He'll be eaten by a snake pretty soon," she said off handedly. "On a sky island."

"Seriously?" Ace looked exasperated. "Why doesn't that surprise me?"

Angie covered her mouth with her hand, hiding a giggle. "Because Luffy is reckless and accident prone?" She offered.

Ace nodded sagely.

"You'll see him soon. In Alabasta. Unless you hang out in Drum Kingdom long enough to see him to over throw the government."

Ace stared at her. Then let out a deep sigh.

"That. Sounds like something he would do. Yeah."

Angie nodded, smiling fondly. Luffy was cute, he had always been her favorite character. And now he was real. Not that Angie would ever meet him.

"I won't find Teach there, will I?" Ace asked.

"Ah, no. Let me see…. He's not in Drum, not in Alabasta. Luffy crossed paths with him on, uh. Jerma? That's not the right name. Bellamy is there? Luffy goes there after he leaves Alabasta." She stopped talking.

Ace's face had gone grim, pale and drawn into tight lines. His eyes bored straight into her. Piercing her soul.

"You're sure it was Teach?" he pressed. Angie frowned, thinking back. She hadn't gotten very far. She had only just started when they got in the crash.

"Bad teeth, weird laugh, like's cherry pies?"

"That's the one."

"Then yeah, he was there," she nodded her confirmation.

"I see," Ace nodded to himself and stood, brushing his shorts off. He held out a hand for Angie. When she took it a spark shot through her arm, all the way to her shoulder. She tried to keep breathing.

Now that Ace knew where to find Teach, this would be the last she saw of him.

"Why don't you come sail with me for a while?"

… or not.

* * *

If Peggy had to stay behind on the ship when they got to the Drum Kingdom, she was going to kill someone. For real. She was beyond sick of having to lay around all day and now here she was, sitting on the deck of the ship waiting for everyone else to come back from their little island adventure with the bounty hunters, staring at the seas while she tried to do more than ten push ups without fainting. She would _not_ miss her chance to meet Chopper for the first time on his home turf. No fucking way.

As soon as Luffy had fulfilled his contract with Laboon and Tom had scrambled off to the Red Line, uninterested in piracy, they had set sail with their new companions. Captives, rather. Both of which had sprung a trap on them in Whiskey Peak. Sort of.

Peggy had been told to stay on the ship, and she had, reluctantly, while everyone else went out and partied. Now, she could hear Luffy screaming and something exploding. A lot of things exploding.

Peggy managed a twelfth push up, her newest record, before her elbows shook and gave out under her. She braced for impact, but instead found herself held up by one hand on each shoulder. She blinked a couple of time and sat back on her knees, looking for her savior. She found, instead, a pair of slender arms protruding from the ship.

The fingers were long and delicate, but calloused around the nails, part of the palm and on one pointer. Gun hands. Peggy reached to take one hand in hers. She half expected them to fall apart into petals, but they stayed solid while she laced their fingers together and inspected where they came out of the wooden deck.

"Wicked," she murmured, tracing the connection. It was then that the limb shivered and fell apart on her fingers.

"Hey, Wait!" She objected, trying to catch a petal in vain. Robin!

Someone giggled from the crows nest. Peggy pretended she hear. She wiped sweat from her brow, suddenly self conscious. She was still frighteningly thin, all of the fat from her body gone and the muscles just starting to return. Her hair had never been much of a priority before, but now she was well aware of exactly how ratty it probably looked from her excessize, her poor pin only ably to do so much. Her shirt, still one of Luffys vests until they reached a town with more shopping (maybe even after that, Namis debts were steep) stuck to her skin where her boobs had been sweating.

In short, the cowgirl looked gross and wasn't straight enough to ignore it when there was a pretty older lady around.

She needed a shower immediately.

But if she showered now, she might miss it when the others showed up and when Robin sorta introduced herself. Maybe. If she wasn't quick.

If she was quick….

Peggy rushed bellow deck. She didn't think she'd ever cleaned herself so thoroughly so fast before. Showers, brushed stuff, deodorized herself and pulled on Luffy' pale blue vest, to offset her eyes, she went rushing back to the galley.

Sanji didn't let other people mess with his kitchen. Peggy respected that. So she didn't do what she wanted to do, she settled for fetching a couple of mugs and brewing a camomile blend Sanji had given her free reign over already, bless his sweetheart.

She came back on deck less than fifteen minutes later, and with no sign of Carue and a few explosions still going off in the city she figured she was safe enough.

Peggy refused to wonder when she started thinking of explosions as safe. Maybe she really was meant to be a Straw Hat pirate. She knew one person who definitely was.

"Excuse me?" she looked around, peering around the steam that wafted through the mugs. The boat rocked softly in the waves but she was steady, her bones heavy and strong. She almost walked right past the woman, she was so silent and still, but something pulled at her. She tasted salt.

Peggy turned and met the clear blue eyes of Nico Robin.

She had to pause to collect herself when she looked her over, briefly. Tight vest, cowboy hat that just goddamn fit on her smooth black hair. Her sharp nose and delicate cheekbones were accompanied by a thin mouth that was twisted with mirth. Her eyes though-

They were so far away. They were the eyes of someone smiling because it was polite to acknowledge the person on the other side of the glass as you passed them on a bus heading to nowhere.

Peggy was struck with the sudden desire to rip the World Government out by its roots, force every Celestial Dragon on their knees and force them to look at the eyes of Nico Robin and see all the pain they had caused to shut her away, for nothing more than wanting to know the truth.

"Hello," her voice was a soft, easy alto and she spoke with rehearsed grace.

"Hey," Peggy ran her tongue over the little bones that stuck out of her mouth and offered a mug to Robin. "You were the one that caught me, yeah?"

They were close enough to the edge of the boat that Peggy could see the water lapping up at the side of the _Merry_. Robin, long and graceful, was stretched out along the railing despite the dangers the sea held for people like her.

Peggy felt gangling and coltish next to the woman, who took the cup with a sort of fluidity reserved for cats. And pretty women.

"I am," Robin agreed. The smile didn't leave but her eyes were guarded so Peggy made sure that she smiled true.

"Thank you," she said genuinely. "I appreciate it. I'm Pe- erm. Devereux Peggy," she correct herself again. Second time she'd almost made a mistake and now she sounded like a fool or a liar to the woman in front of her. Cursing herself mentally she tried to hide the heat of her cheeks with the cup. And explosion rocked the ground, and water, sending the boat bouncing up.

Peggy moved to catch Robin around her shoulders without a thought, sending her mug crashing to shatter on the deck. She found herself a few inches from a woman whose smile had disappeared. More arms had come out of Peggy's own back to wrap a hand around her throat threateningly.

"Um," she said eloquently, and wished fervently for her twin. Teddy was always in control, Teddy know how to flirt with people and never hesitated for anyone or anything. She would have given anything to hear her say, ' _Here's what you do.'_ right then.

"You were trying to catch me," Robin realized. Her eyes were wider, crystal blue a touch more prominent. Peggy nodded quickly.

"You ate a devil fruit right?" they were so close, Peggy wished viciously she had brushed her teeth when she was getting cleaned up. Robin smelled like smoke and cinnamon and dust long undisturbed. "I can swim, but you can't. And I really can't- I'm not strong enough to swim with someone else."

"Who are you?" Robin asked. Those pale blue eyes searched hers for something. Blue. Blue like a robins egg. Peggy gently smoothed her hands down Robin's sleeves, drawing away. The hands holding her throat loosened. She was afraid. Robin wouldn't be able to break her neck.

"I'm Peggy," she said again. "Margarita, people call me Peggy. "

Luffy landed on the ship a scant foot away from the women. Peggy's hair fluttered sideways, her sparkling clip barely keeping it out of her eyes.

Then, all hell broke loose on the _Merry_.

* * *

Wilhelmina Deveraux sat on the ground, staring blankly ahead of her with the sort of shock that only came to people who had not only seen the unimaginable, they had done the unthinkable.

Blood dripped down Garp's fine white suite, still in place despite the fact that they were working out in the hot ocean sun. Will had slathered herself with so much sunblock she could have been a ghost with how white she'd become. No skin cancer for her, thank you very much. She was very much the opposite of the Vice Admiral, who looked down at the four gashes on his chest with more curiosity than surprise.

Will, contrarily, felt like a floor had fallen out from under her.

There was no way that she, the least aggressive of her five sisters, had actually managed to land a hit on one of the strongest men in the world, let alone one deep enough to make him bleed, and all while she stood before his without a single scratch on her steel blackened skin. Her knees tried to shake but she held it together with the same imaginary strings she had used before, holding tight to her hardened skin.

"How…?"

"You've been holding back," Garp said. He touched the blood, letting it drip off of his finger tips when he drew them away. "The more of you that's covered, the faster and stronger you are. If you cover your whole body, you'd been hard pressed to beat by most pirates."

Will touched her cheek, the soft clink of metal on metal sounding when her long nails touched the shield that had crept its way up her jaw in her distraction. She shook her head violently and shoved the darkness away from her face, down. Down past her collar, off of her chest and legs until it was receding into her hands once more.

"No. No way. I'm not letting it it go that far," she argued swiftly. "It's _bad_ , you don't understand."

Garp slammed his fist down on her head. Instinct alone summoned protection to the parts of her body that hit the ground so hard.

Will looked up at him from the cracked wood on deck, fighting hard against the steel the slithered across her skin.

"How stupid are you?" Garp demanded, looking down at her. It made her want to curl into a ball. How could a little disappointment from a guy who wasn't even her dad do that? "When you're in a fight you need every advantage you have. You can't be holding back for some frivolous reason or you and the people under you will die!"

Vanished was the eccentric, but good humored man who she had been training under on the way to Marine Ford. Gone was the man who's biggest test was to see if she could stick her arm in a wood chipper and still be okay.

In his place loomed a force to be reckoned with, and Will abruptly understood why he was a commander.

_The people under you will die!_

She did not voice the morbid thought, the awful question of 'how many have you lost?'. She wasn't so foolish. She wasn't so cruel. Will bowed her head.

"It's dangerous," she said again. The words bubbled forth from her mouth, "This power- I have to keep it in check. It's not Haki, it's not something that I put over myself. It's something that I have to pull off of myself and if I don't then all I am is instinct and instinct- instinct isn't always good. Sir."

Garp kept looking at her. She could feel the weight of his gaze, heavy on the crown of her head. She curled her hands into fists.

She knew her power. She knew her legacy. She knew her truth.

She accepted that it was a part of her, but it was not a part she would let be in control. Never.

"Fine then," Garp said. She looked up in time to see him pull out a sleeve of crackers. "We'll just train your instincts then."


End file.
